First up today, some of you might be aware that Universal is releasing a Casino: 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray in the U.K. on 5/4. We’re already checking with our sources to see if it’s coming to BD here in the States as well later this year. Our guess would be yes, but we’ll let you know when we hear anything more definitive. [Read on here…]

Meanwhile, Universal has announced a new Jurassic Park Collection on Blu-ray on 5/12 (SRP $59.98). It includes the first three films on Blu-ray, with Digital Copy, plus a slot to add the new Jurassic World film when it’s finally released on Blu-ray and disc later in 2015.

Disney’s live-action Cinderella is now up for Blu-ray and DVD pre-order on Amazon.com, though street date is still TBA.

Shout! Factory has announced the double-feature Blu-ray release of The Pope of Greenwich Village and Desperate Hours on 6/2.

Magnolia has set the western Serena for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/9. The film reunites stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (from Silver Linings Playbook), and also features Rhys Ifans.

Kino Lorber will release Jean Rollin’s The Escapees as a Redemption Blu-ray title on 5/26. They’ve also just announced that William A. Fraker’s Monte Walsh (1970) and William Friedkin’s The Boys in the Band (1970) are coming to Blu-ray in July. And they’ve added John Dahl’s Unforgettable (1996) to their September BD slate. Street dates are TBA.

Olive Films is releasing Blumenthal and The Last American Virgin on Blu-ray on 5/26. They also have Satan’s Blade coming to Blu-ray and DVD on 5/12.

And our friends at Twilight Time are celebrating their fourth anniversary with a big sale on many of their fine Blu-ray and DVD titles, available at Screen Archives Entertainment. The sale runs until Friday, April 3rd at 4pm EST. Visit their Facebook page here for specific details.

Finally, this is exciting: 1960s Batman stars Adam West and Burt Ward announced (at the Mad Monster Party convention in Charlotte this past weekend) that they they’re going to be providing the voices of Batman and Robin in at least one... and possibly two... new animated Batman feature films. Pretty awesome! Here’s a clip of them revealing the good word:

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We’ll leave you with a look at more Blu-ray cover artwork. As always, click on the covers to pre-order the titles in question Amazon (and, in so doing, help support The Bits)…

Here’s something for you catalog fans: The official Disney Movie Club has revealed that they’re going to be releasing the live action classics Swiss Family Robinson (1960) and Return to Oz (1985) on Blu-ray on 4/14, though only to club members. Other classic live-action titles are already available on Blu-ray to club members, including The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Polyanna (1960), Old Yeller (1957), The Love Bug (1968), and Herbie Rides Again (1974). I haven’t seen any of these personally, but readers tell me they’re pretty good on the whole. There are currently no signs that these BDs will be made available widely, although that’s always a possibility down the line. The regular club price is $29.95 for Blu-ray, but when you first join you get some good discounts. Visit the official Disney Movie Club website here for more information and to sign up. [Read on here…]

Also today, Anchor Bay and Starz have also set Sam Peckinpah’s The Osterman Weekend for Bu-ray release on 5/19.

Excel Entertainment has set the documentary Meet the Mormons for Blu-ray and DVD release on 3/31. Extras will include a bonus story (The Artist), David Archuleta’s Glorious music video, the Making of Meet the Mormons featurette, producer and director commentary, and more.

Alchemy will release Icetastrophe on DVD and VOD on 5/12.

Virgil Films has announced Béla Fleck: How to Write a Banjo Concerto for VOD only on 4/21.

And Lionsgate has announced Power Rangers Super Megaforce: Sky Strike for DVD and digital release on 6/9.

In other news this afternoon, let me make a quick film viewing recommendation: Go see What We Do in the Shadows. It’s a mockumentary send-up of the vampire genre made in New Zealand in 2014 and produced by Funny or Die. It debuted at Sundance last year and is now in theaters here in the States distributed by Madman Entertainment. You might have seen the Kickstarter campaign to make the American theatrical release happen. The film is already available on Blu-ray in Australia and the UK, and is set for DVD only release here in the States on 5/19 from “Team Marketing” – hopefully Team will get a Blu-ray going as well later this year. If not, a lot of people are going to end up importing the Blu-ray. Let me tell you, it’s very funny. Here’s a look at the trailer…

Finally, a bit of disappointing news: Our sources have informed us that MGM may be quietly putting together a new Blu-ray release of John Wayne’s The Alamo. However, this is a restoration meant for Blu-ray only – it’s not being done properly or with an eye toward preserving the film for future generations. So the quality is going to be makeshift at best. Here’s a bit of a recent update from our old friend and restoration legend Robert A. Harris on the status of the film (posted on The Home Theater Forum on 3/1):

“As enough time has gone by for MGM to put on their “big boy” pants and step to the plate, it is very obvious that decisions have been made at the highest levels to allow The Alamo to deteriorate beyond repair.

Any products released from now on will come from 35mm elements or problematic masters. If 35 is the basis, imagery will be approximately 20% of the original.

Not a smart decision, but MGM is merely a shell waiting for the right buyer or investors to come along and take over. Hopefully, any entity that has designs on the library will perform proper due diligence, by inspecting every physical element in the library.

Pity.

RAH”

Such a shame.

Anyway, here’s a little more new Blu-ray cover artwork for you to check out. As always, click on the covers to pre-order the titles in question Amazon (and, in so doing, help support The Bits)…

Let’s kick off the new week with a quick round-up of new Blu-ray release announcements...

Our friends at the Warner Archive will release 42nd Street (1933) on Blu-ray on 4/21. The Blu-ray is mastered from the new 2015 restoration, with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono audio. Extras will include the From Book to Screen to Stage 2006 retrospective documentary, 3 vintage WB short subjects (Hollywood Newsreel, A Trip Thru a Hollywood Studio, and Harry Warren: America’s Foremost Composer), the vintage promotional newsreel The 42nd Street Special, 2 vintage 1933 WB cartoons (Young and Healthy and Shuffle Off to Buffalo), and the original theatrical trailer. [Read on here…]

Here’s something interesting: MGM is releasing a Get Shorty: 20th Anniversary Edition (1995) on Blu-ray on 5/5, along with the film’s sequel Be Cool (2005). For better value, both will be included together in The Big Hit Collection on Blu-ray and DVD, also due 5/5.

MGM is also re-releasing many of its best-selling catalog titles on Blu-ray on 5/5 in new packaging, including Red Dawn, Road House, Raging Bull and many others. This includes The Sergio Leone Anthology, complete with A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Duck, You Sucker in HD in the same package.

Meanwhile, Sony has just set Justified: The Final Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/9.

Anchor Bay and Starz have set The Drownsman for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/12. They also have The Adventures of Ford Fairlane coming on Blu-ray on 5/5.

Here’s one for you cult fans: Severin Films has just set Vampyros Lesbos for Blu-ray release on 5/12. The disc will include the German trailer, 5 featurettes (Vampyros Jesús: Interview with Writer/Director Jess Franco, Sublime Soledad: Interview with Soledad Miranda Historian Amy Brown, Stephen Thrower on Vampyros Lesbos: Interview with Author of Murderous Passions, The Delirious Cinema of Jess Franco, and Jess Is Yoda Clip), plus the alternate Spanish Language Version Bootleg.

And Acorn will release Foyle’s War, Set 8 on Blu-ray on 4/14.

Here’s a look at some of the Blu-ray cover artwork – click the covers to pre-order these titles on Amazon.com if available...

The major bit of release news today is sure to please you Studio Ghibli fans. Disney has announced the Blu-ray release of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) and Hiroyuki Morita’s The Cat Returns (2002) on Blu-ray DVD Combo on 6/16. Spirited Away will include an Introduction by John Lasseter, 3 featurettes (The Art of Spirited Away and Behind the Microphone), original Japanese storyboards, the Nippon Television Special, and original Japanese trailers and TV spots. The Cat Returns will include 2 featurettes (The Making of The Cat Returns and Behind the Microphone), original Japanese storyboards, and original Japanese trailers and TV spots. We’re hoping that Disney will include proper English translation subs this time rather than a dub transcript (we’re trying to find out). [Read on here…]

I’m personally really looking forward to this. Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is my all-time favorite Ghibli film. It’s absolutely stunning animation from a master at the top of his game. As you should already know, Miyazaki’s first animated film, Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro, will be released on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray here in the States for the first time on 6/23 from Discotek Media. We’ve also confirmed that GKids and Universal will be releasing Studio Ghibli’s latest film, When Marnie Was There, on Blu-ray and DVD later this year.

Speaking of Universal, the studio has set Parks and Recreation: Season Seven – The Farewell Season and Parks and Recreation: The Complete Series for DVD only release on 6/2.

Meanwhile, Troma is releasing The Toxic Avenger, Part II on Blu-ray/DVD Combo on 4/14 (SRP $24.95), along with Class of Nuke ‘Em High 2 on Blu-ray/DVD Combo that same day.

A quick review note: I’m currently working my way though Fox’s new Exodus: Gods and Kings – Deluxe Edition on Blu-ray and should have the review ready to post by Monday. I’ve got a few other reviews in the hopper too, so be sure to check back. [Read on here…]

In announcement news today, Scream Factory has announced a couple more titles they have coming to Blu-ray in July and beyond, including Robot Jox (7/7), The Howling II (7/14), The Outing/The Godsend (7/14), Cellar Dweller/Catacombs (7/14), Ghost Town (7/28), and Nomads and I, Madman (TBA for Summer).

The big release news today is that Sony Picture Home Entertainment has just set Peter H. Hunt’s classic musical 1776 for release on Blu-ray on 6/2. The film will be the 166-minute Directors’ Cut, recently restored in 4K by Grover Crisp and his team at Sony Pictures Colorworks from the original camera negative and with Hunt’s guidance. According to Hunt: “I’m ecstatic. 1776 is back to where it should be. The work done by Grover and his team is miraculous. It looks better than when it premiered. It’s gorgeous!” In addition to the film, you’ll get all-new audio commentary with Hunt, William Daniels and Ken Howard, a second commentary with Hunt and Peter Stone, deleted and alternate scenes with commentary, 4 never-before-seen screen tests, archival screen tests, and the film’s original teaser and theatrical trailers. [Read on here…]

And Paramount’s Selma is now due on 5/5. You can see the final cover artwork below.

Here’s something interesting: Fox appears to have licensed out Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days: 20th Anniversary Edition to Koch Media GmbH for Blu-ray release in Germany on 4/23. The 2-disc set is likely to be Region B coded, but will apparently include 4 featurettes, deleted scenes, the Selling Jesus music video and the film’s trailer. It remains to be seen if Fox will release the title here in the States themselves, license it out to a third party to do so, or just sit on it. Anyway, here’s what the German version looks like (with Amazon link - but remember that it’s Region B and the SD extras are likely in PAL format)...

On that note, lot of you have asked what’s going on with the Blu-ray release of Cameron’s The Abyss and True Lies, and the Cameron-produced Strange Days, here in the States. The answer seems to be that it’s complicated. There appears to be a dispute or pissing match of some kind going on between Cameron and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Cameron points the finger squarely at TCFHE, and for their part TCFHE says nothing. But our information would suggest that there are larger issues at play here than just these titles. All of which is terribly frustrating for fans who know that work has been done on these discs and who are eagerly awaiting them, but there it is.

Meanwhile, related to Fox, MGM has just set a new double feature Blu-ray of Poltergeist II and III for release on 5/19. Each will be released separately that day as well.

In other news today, Magnolia has set The Wrecking Crew for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/16.

Mill Creek Entertainment is releasing All the King’s Men (2006) and Old Gringo on 5/5.

And Alchemy has set Accidental Love for DVD and Blu-ray release on 4/28.

Finally, here’s something even more awesome: You may recall that a new restoration of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus was due to be screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood this weekend (see our original post on this here at The Bits from 2/11), but was then pulled with this note on the festival’s website: “Due to unforeseen circumstances we regret this film will not be presented as previously announced.” While it’s true that the screening has been cancelled, we’ve confirmed through our industry sources that a new restoration of Spartacushas been completed and that Universal Studios Home Entertainment is planning to release it on Blu-ray later in 2015. More information will follow in the weeks and months ahead as the studio firms up the details and makes an official announcement. But we thought you Kubrick fans would appreciate the early heads-up.

We’ll leave you today with a look at more new Blu-ray cover artwork. Click on the covers to pre-order these title on Amazon, if available…

You may already have heard this news (we posted it on our Facebook page earlier this morning), but 20th Century Fox, series creator Chris Carter and stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson have reached a deal to allow The X-Files to return to TV as a 6-episode “event series” due to start shooting this Summer. You can read more here at Deadline Hollywood. We have a feeling that this announcement also makes it at least a little more likely that Fox will finally release The X-Files: The Complete Series on Blu-ray sometime in the next year or so. Fingers crossed.

In announcement news today, Universal has set Fifty Shades of Grey for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/8, with digital due on 5/1. The Blu-ray will include both the theatrical and unrated editions, plus The World of Fifty Shades of Grey documentary (includes Christian Gray Profile, Jamie Dorian Profile, Christian’s Apartment, Christian’s Wardrone, A Rich Man’s Toys, All About Anna, Dakota Johnson Profile, Ana’s World, and Ana’s Wardrobe), E.E. James & Fifty Shades, Fifty Shades: The Pleasure of Pain, 360° Set Tours, music videos from Skylar Grey, The Weekend and Ellie Goulding, The World of Fifty Shades of Gray: Friends and Family, Behind the Shades, and more. (Personally, we checked out around shade #2, but your own mileage may vary.)

Shout! Factory has set The Decline of Western Civilization Collection for Blu-ray release on 6/30 (SRP $59.98), set to include The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years (1988), and The Decline of Western Civilization III (1998). Each film has received a new 2K scan supervised by director Penelope Spheeris. Extras on the set will include audio commentary by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, 2 interview featurettes (Tawn Mastrey of KNAC Interviews Penelope Spheeris and Mark Toscano of The Academy Film Archive Interviews Penelope Spheeris), never-before-seen footage, performances and interviews, theatrical trailers, and a 40-page booklet featuring rare stills and text by Domenic Priore.

Back to Fox for a moment, the studio has just set Glee: The Final Season and Glee: The Complete Series for DVD only release on 5/19. The Complete Series will include over 5 hours of bonus content. Fox has also set White Collar: The Complete Sixth Season and White Collar: The Con-plete Collection for DVD only release on 5/5.

Sony has set Still Alice for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/12, featuring 3 deleted scenes, and 3 featurettes (Directing Alice, Finding Alice, and Interview with Composer Ilan Eshkeri).

Disney has set 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure for Blu-ray release on 6/9.

Lionsgate will release Cymbeline on Blu-ray, DVD and digital on 5/19.

Lionsgate will also release Mortdecai, starring Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow, on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/12. Extras will include 2 featurettes.

And Lionsgate has set Tracers for Blu-ray, DVD and digital release on 5/12 as well, with the History Channel series Sons of Liberty due on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/26.

Here’s something cool: The Cohen Film Collection has set a double feature of That Man from Rio and Up to His Ears for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/4 (SRP $49.98 and $39.98). Both 1960s films were directed by Philippe de Broca and star Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Anchor Bay Entertainment and Amplify Releasing have set Against the Sun for DVD release on 5/5.

Anchor Bay Entertainment and Gravitas Ventures have meanwhile set Murder of a Cat for DVD release on 5/5.

Film Movement will release the Italian film Human Capitol digitally on 4/17, followed by a DVD release in July (TBA).

Well Go USA Entertainment has set These Final Hours for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/12.

Entertainment One will release Rogue: The Complete Second Season on DVD only on 5/19.

VCI Entertainment will release the Laurel & Hardy film The Flying Deuces on Blu-ray on 5/19.

And finally, PBS has set Masterpiece: Wolf Hall for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/28.

Here’s a look at the Blu-ray cover artwork for a few of the titles we’ve mentioned above (click on the covers to pre-order on Amazon)…

The big news today is that we’ve confirmed that Universal’s new Apollo 13: 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray will feature a brand new 4K high resolution remaster with DRS and color correction scanned from the original 35mm film negative. In addition to all the previous Blu-ray extras, the new edition will also feature Apollo 13: Twenty Years Later, an “all-new retrospective featuring exclusive interviews with director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.” However (for those who may be wondering) there is no IMAX version and no Atmos mix. Audio is English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby 2.0, plus French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese DTS Digital Surround 5.1. Note that this new film restoration is going to premiere theatrically on March 27 at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. Click on the cover art below to pre-order the title on Amazon...

In other release news today, Starz and Anchor Bay have set Power: The Complete First Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/12.

Also, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has set With This Ring for DVD only release on 6/2.

And Lionsgate has set A Most Violent Year for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/7.

Adopt Films has set Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/5.

Acorn Media will release New Worlds on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/30.

Entertainment One will release Pound of Flesh on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/23, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

And finally, BBC Home Entertainment will release Ripper Street: Season Three on both formats on 6/23.

Here’s a look at a little bit more new and recent Blu-ray cover artwork, with Amazon.com pre-order links (if available). The Twilight titles link to Screen Archives Entertainment, where they will be available for pre-order next week...

All right, we’ll be back on Monday with more news and reviews. I’m working a look at Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings on Blu-ray, among other titles. So have a great weekend and we’ll see you then!

“[Spielberg] has said he felt invincible at the time, so what you get is a Steven Spielberg channeling his inner ten-year-old and going crazy on a movie backlot.” — Mike Matessino

“The main reason to celebrate 1941,” says Mike Matessino, “is because it has been restored in HD and released on Blu-ray, particularly the extended version that fans have come to love and which Steven Spielberg considers his Director’s Cut.” Matessino produced the two-disc CD soundtrack release of 1941 issued by La-La Land Records in 2011 and will be hosting the American Cinematheque’s March 22nd screening of the film and cast-and-crew Q&A. The screening will mark the theatrical debut of a new DCP of the extended cut of the film. [Read more here...]

1941 is also celebrating its 35th anniversary, having been released in late 1979 and playing through the early months of 1980. And, nearly ten years after the format’s launch, 1941 finally received a release on Blu-ray Disc when it was among the titles chosen for inclusion in the recently released Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection Blu-ray set. (The set also includes Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Always, Jurassic Park, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park.) A stand-alone Blu-ray of 1941 is scheduled for release in May.

The Universal/Columbia co-production starred the ensemble of Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, and Treat Williams. With a script by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale and John Milius, the epic comedy chronicles the paranoia and zaniness that ensues following the spotting of a Japanese submarine off the West Coast soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film also features Nancy Allen, Eddie Deezen, Bobby Di Cicco, Dianne Kay, Slim Pickens, Wendie Jo Sperber, John Candy, and Lionel Stander.

1941 premiered at the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles on December 13th, 1979. The film opened the following day in a few hundred theaters in the United States and Canada, including a handful of prestigious 70-millimeter presentations in high-profile markets such as New York (at the Rivoli), Los Angeles (Cinerama Dome), San Francisco (Northpoint), San Jose (Century 21), and Seattle (Crest). Opening weekend saw a third-place-finishing $2.7 million-gross (behind Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Jerk) and plenty of negative reviews. The promotional tagline used was, “As they roared into battle, only one thing was missing… the enemy.” Some have thought, “As they roared into battle, only one thing was missing… the audience” may have been more accurate.

Co-screenwriter Bob Gale insists 1941 was not a flop. “Although it was pretty soundly trashed by the critics, it did make a modest profit,” says Gale, who also with Zemeckis wrote I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Used Cars and the Oscar-nominated Back to the Future. “I think a lot of the bad reviews had to do with the expectations of what Steven would do after Jaws and Close Encounters. And perhaps there were some critics who thought Steven was on too high a pedestal and he needed to be taken down a bit.” Spielberg’s film, his fourth theatrical production, grossed about $30 million domestic and more than $50 million internationally. So, even with its reported $35 million production cost and only about half of the theatrical take coming back to the distributor, any claims of flop status should be called into question.

Gale, who will participate in the Q&A following the upcoming screening, says 1941 was the first feature script he and screenwriting partner Robert Zemeckis were hired to write after graduating from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television. John Milius, who received a co-writing credit on the film, was originally considered to direct. Milius had written Apocalypse Now for Francis Ford Coppola and had directed The Wind and the Lion (1975) and Big Wednesday (1978) and would go on to direct Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Red Dawn (1984). “We weren’t really thinking about who would direct it when we wrote it — we just wanted to write a crazy comedy,” says Gale. “John let Steven read it, and Steven said, ‘I want to direct this!’ and John figured that Steven was in a position to really put everything on the screen. Bob and I were just thrilled that the movie was getting made!”

Was Spielberg a good choice to direct considering he had not made a comedy at that point in his career? “Of course, Steven was a great choice,” insists Gale. “Not many directors could convince a studio that it was a good idea to have an aerial dogfight on Hollywood Boulevard, a choreographed jitterbug number that turns into a huge riot, and a Ferris wheel rolling down Santa Monica pier, all in one movie.”

Gale says he has wonderful memories of the filming of the movie, and, unlike many screenwriters, he and Zemeckis were allowed to hang out on set during the production. “The cast was just incredible,” remembers Gale. “To have our dialog performed by actors we grew up watching — Toshiro Mifune, Slim Pickens, Robert Stack, Warren Oates, Christopher Lee — it was like being a kid in a candy store. Bob and I were 27 years old, and we concocted this ballet of insanity that involved hundreds, maybe a thousand people! We used to say, ‘it’s a 35 million dollar movie that was typed on a 30 dollar typewriter.’ And that was when a 35 million dollar budget made it one of the most expensive movies ever made. Today, to put those images on the screen, it’s probably north of $150 million, maybe more.”

Despite the frequently-given sentiment that it is not a great movie, 1941, as we’ve come to expect from Spielberg’s films, was very well made, earning Academy Award nominations for its visual effects, sound, and William Fraker’s cinematography. Some may find it surprising that composer John Williams’ now revered score did not receive a nomination given his track record. (Williams was not nominated for his other scored film from 1979, Dracula, either.) Among the most-prolific and celebrated director-composer collaborations ever, Williams has scored 26 of Spielberg’s 27¼ theatrical feature films, receiving Academy Award nominations for 16 of them, winning three times. As well, Williams received 23 Grammy nominations for his Spielberg work, winning 11 times. Yet, despite the lack of any 1979 awards season love for Williams’ contribution to 1941, his score might just be the most appealing and enduring aspect of the film.

“Williams’ 1941 score is simply brilliant,” says Matessino. “I share Steven Spielberg’s opinion that the march is even better than Williams’ Raiders March, but the score as a whole shows Williams’ versatility and just how good he is at writing for comedy. He works in a lot of existing melodies, more than for any other score he’s done, I think, and there really isn’t a single moment where the score is just droning along. It’s always doing something interesting, and it constantly entertains and fires the imagination. There’s no dissonance in it, it wears its heart on its sleeve, and it brilliantly performed and recorded.”

Adds Matessino: “I think 1941 truly solidified the Spielberg/Williams collaboration, because after Jaws and Close Encounters it would not have been surprising if Spielberg considered a different composer for a comedy — a genre Williams had not done in a while. Instead, he knew that Williams could do anything and they went into it together. It happened at a very important point in John Williams’ career, right smack in the middle of a ten-year period in which he scored nine of the hugest blockbusters of all time. And it also happened just as he was about to take up the baton as conductor of the Boston Pops.”

John Williams, by the way, was a little boy in 1941 and his father was a drummer in a swing band, so it would make sense with 1941 that Williams would tap in to his own early musical influences and build in a tribute of sorts to his father. The centerpiece of this idea is Swing, Swing, Swing, which Williams wrote to accompany the USO jitterbug contest sequence. It was based upon Benny Goodman’s famous Sing, Sing, Sing (1937), which is what was used as playback on the set during production. “Williams managed to come up with a piece that is a tribute to the era but which also works as a piece of film scoring,” Matessino says. “If you look at the scene you would swear that the music was written first and the scene was created to match it. There is total synergy there, and I’d say that scene is still one of the highlights of the Spielberg/Williams collaboration.”

Matessino’s role on the remastering of 1941 was to restore the music to the extended cut. He got involved after producing a two-CD set of the score and discovered that there were some scenes in the extended version that had originally been scored but that material had not been restored on the version that existed on LaserDisc and DVD. The reason was that those disc releases used the 1983 network television broadcast as a template, and when the extended version was first restored in 1995 the music was matched to the broadcast version. While working on the soundtrack project, Matessino studied 1941 carefully and came to feel that some of the extended version scenes that used repeated or looped music could be scored better and made that proposal to Spielberg. “The goal was to eliminate any residual sense that the extended version is a TV edit,” Matessino explains. “I believe the few music changes and some minimal sound work now make it feel like a finished, polished director’s cut.”

“I really do enjoy the extended version,” says Gale. “The extended cut [which runs about 25 minutes longer than the theatrical cut] includes a lot of back story that better explains the motivations of the characters. It puts the Wally-Betty story more in the limelight, which is what Bob Zemeckis and I had always intended. It also, I think, creates the sense of a ticking time bomb, with different stories and characters all on an impending collision course.”

Gale adds: “I’m particularly grateful that Universal and Steven pulled the trigger on this restoration, and that we had a lot of passionate people working on it, to make it look and sound so great. And a special shout out to Mike Matessino who gets the total awesomeness award. Mike was instrumental in the restored 1941 soundtrack CD a few years ago, so when he saw that Universal was using the wrong cues for the added scenes from the DVD version, he remembered that these scenes had been scored, and put the right music in. So this is the first time these scenes have been married to the right music.”

And what of the sentiment 1941 is a disappointment? Matessino believes the film has improved with age. “1941 is astounding technically,” he proclaims. “It might actually have the best miniatures ever done, and it’s mind-blowing to think that every single thing in the picture was physically placed in front of a camera. As well, I feel that this extended version is superior because it sets up the characters better and creates more of the atmosphere of the era that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were going for in their screenplay.”

Matessino also believes 1941 was way ahead of its time. “The film was perhaps too frantic for 1979 when we hadn’t yet gotten fully conditioned to the speed of video games,” he says. “It also came out at a time when we were getting a lot of serious pictures about the Vietnam War. So going back to the ‘40s for a slapstick comedy about panicked Americans didn’t resonate at that moment. Looking at it now you can really appreciate the subversiveness of it… and that’s the combination of Spielberg, Zemeckis & Gale, and, of course, John Milius.”

Should movie buffs give 1941 a second chance? “For me, 1941 is an essential Spielberg movie,” Matessino says. “It’s impossible to appreciate the track of Spielberg’s early directing career without it. You have Jaws and Close Encounters on one side — hugely successful but both very difficult productions that went over-schedule and over-budget… and Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on the other — hugely successful but both very disciplined productions that came in under-schedule and under-budget. 1941 illuminates how that transition happened, but at the same time fans get to enjoy Spielberg’s indulgence. He has said he felt invincible at the time, so what you get is a Steven Spielberg channeling his inner ten-year-old and going crazy on a movie backlot. But underneath all the screaming and destruction you can see his passion for old movies and Old Hollywood.”

One of the beauties of repertory screenings and home-video, as such, is that they support the idea that films can be discovered or re-discovered years after original release. 1941, watched again (or for the first time) without the distraction of pre-release hype or any media coverage about the project going over budget or needless comparisons to other films, perhaps can now be enjoyed and appreciated like so many other movies of Steven Spielberg’s illustrious career.

“From what I’ve read over the years, there’s been a lot of positive re-evaluation of the movie,” says Gale. “Which is easier to do without the context of the time in which it was released. I think this new edition will contribute to that. No one can ignore the spectacle of this film, and seeing it in HD and hearing it in full-blown stereo surround makes it even more impressive. And dammit, it’s funny!”

First of all, Time Life has announced that they’re going to be releasing NBC’s classic 70s sitcom CPO Sharkey on DVD, starting with The Complete First Season on 5/19 (SRP $29.95). The 3-disc set will include all 15 half-hour episodes, along with a clip of star Don Rickles appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Finally today, just a quick heads-up: We’ll be back here at The Bits tomorrow morning with another great new History, Legacy & Showmanship column from our own Michael Coate, this time featuring a look back at Steven Spielberg’s 1941. Be sure to check back for it.

All right, sorry for the lack of a news post yesterday, but I’ve been wrapped up in Blu-ray review work. Some big titles are coming out over the next few weeks and a number of them are well worth diving into.

Speaking of which, though it took all day yesterday to go through everything, I’ve posted my in-depth review of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar on Blu-ray from Paramount. The disc streets on 3/31. For those of you who experienced problems (in theaters) with the sound mix making lots of the dialogue unintelligible amid the sound effects and music, I can report that’s much less of a problem here. The mix is still pushed toward the low end, and there are still one or two lines where you have to listen more closely than normal, but this does seem to be a deliberate artistic choice. Still, I can attest that this is a much better audio experience than the one I had at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. And the extras are pretty terrific. Do check it out. [Read on here…]

Speaking of spaceflight films, we have word that Universal is releasing a new Apollo 13: 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray on 6/2 (SRP $19.98). All of the existing extras from the previous Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD edition will be included (including the theatrical trailer this time and except for the IMAX version of the film which, in my opinion, isn’t much of a loss). But you also get the brand new Apollo 13: Twenty Years Later featurette. We’re working to confirm that the film will be the new 4K remastered presentation (the one that’s set to debut at the TCM Festival in Hollywood later this month). We strongly suspect that it is.

By the way, Universal has also set Parks and Recreation: The Farewell Season and Parks and Recreation: The Complete Series for DVD release on 6/2.

The other big news is that Criterion has announced their June Blu-ray and DVD slate, and it’s terrific as always. The titles include the André Gregory and Wallace Shawn: 3 Films box set (Cat #TBA – Blu-ray and DVD – featuring My Dinner with André, Vanya on 42nd Street, and A Master Builder), plus single film editions of Jonathan Demme’s A Master Builder (Cat #762 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Louis Malle’s My Dinner with André (Cat #479 – Blu-ray, DVD and Hulu Plus) on 6/16, Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge (Cat #763 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King (Cat #764 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 6/23, and Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (Cat #546 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Cat #761 – Blu-ray, DVD and Hulu Plus) on 6/30. You can find more details here, plus all of the cover artwork is available below.

Meanwhile, Anchor Bay Entertainment and RADiUS have set The Last Five Years for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/5.

Warner Home Video has set Batman: The Second Season, Part 2 for DVD release on 7/14 (SRP $39.98). It includes another 30 episodes of the classic series, which is already available as a Complete Series set on Blu-ray and DVD.

PBS Distribution is releasing Ken Burns’ 3-part Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies documentary series on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/28.

And Shout! Factory and Timeless Media are releasing Gerry Anderson’s Joe 90: The Complete Series on DVD on 4/14. Extras will include commentaries with designer Mike Trim and director Ken Turner, and the Gerry Anderson: Lew Grade to the Rescue interview featurette.

In other news, FUNimation Entertainment has announced that they’ve got the North American distribution rights to Toei’s upcoming Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ animated film, so look for that to be released here on various formats later in 2015.

While we’re talking animation, we’ve learned that GKids (via Universal) will be releasing Studio Ghibli’s latest feature film, When Marnie Was There, on Blu-ray and DVD later this year. The film was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

And here’s one our own Todd Doogan will be happy about: Sentai Filmworks is releasing the original Ninja Scroll animated film on Blu-ray on 5/19. The disc will include feature-length commentary with the director and animation director (in Japanese with English subs).

Speaking of reviews, Warner’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Paramount’s Interstellar are both now in hand, so watch for my own reviews of them in the next few days. [Read on here…]

In announcement news today, Warner Home Video has set the release Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice on Blu-ray and DVD for 4/28. The disc will include “Special Trailers” for Los Paranoias, Shasta Fay, The Golden Fang, and Everything in This Dream. SRP is $35.99 for BD and $28.98 for DVD. You can see the cover artwork to the left and also below.

Anchor Bay Entertainment has set Paddington for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/28 as well.

Lionsgate has set Cymbeline for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/19.

Scream Factory has announced a whole bunch of new Blu-ray titles, including Scarecrows (1988) on 6/2, double features of The Outing(1987)/The Godsend (1980) and Cellar Dweller (1998)/Catacombs (1998) on 7/14, along with Ghost Town (1998) on 7/28. Jack’s Back (1988) and Nomads (1986) are also on the way, but street dates are still TBA.

Twilight Time has revealed the specs and cover artwork for their April Blu-ray slate (all due on 4/14), which will include April Love (1957 – isolated score track; audio commentary with actors Pat Boone and Shirley Jones and film historian Nick Redman; original theatrical trailer), The Fantasticks (2000 – isolated score track; audio commentary with director Michael Ritchie; audio commentary with actress Jean Louisa Kelly and Broadway authority Bruce Kimmel; audio commentary with journalist Chris Willman and film historian Nick Redman, original cut of the film in Standard Definition; original theatrical trailer), The Remains of the Day (1993 – isolated score track; audio commentary with director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and actress Emma Thompson; The Remains of the Day: The Filmmakers’ Journey; Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England’s Fatal Flaw; Love and Loyalty: The Making of The Remains of the Day; deleted scenes with optional director commentary; original theatrical trailer), Richard III (1995 – isolated score track; original theatrical trailer), The Story of Adèle H (1975 – isolated score track; audio commentary with film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman; original theatrical trailer), and Zardoz (1974 – isolated score track; audio commentary with director John Boorman; audio commentary with film historians Jeff Bond, Joe Fordham and Nick Redman; radio spots; original theatrical trailer). All are editions limited to 3,000 units. Pre-orders open next Wednesday, 3/25, at 1 PM PST on Screen Archives Entertainment and TCM Shop. I have to say, Twilight has really been doing terrific work of late. Feast your eyes on their amazing cover artwork for Zardoz and The Fantasticks...!

Also today, Olive Films has set It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Flawless (1999), Peter Benchley’s Creature (1998), and Extremities (1986) for Blu-ray release on 5/19, with Yellowbeard (1983), Ski School (1990), and Erik the Viking (1989) set to follow on 5/26.

RLJ and Image have set Adam Green’s Digging Up the Marrow for Blu-ray and DVD release on 3/24.

We’ll leave you today with more new cover artwork. As always, clicking on the covers will take you to the Amazon pre-order pages for each title, if available (and ordering through our links helps support The Bits!)...

All right, we’ve got a bunch of announcement news for you today, so let’s get right to it…

First up, the BIG catalog news is that HBO is releasing The Wire: The Complete Series on Blu-ray Disc on 6/2 (SRP $199.99). Extras on the 20-disc set will include 12 audio commentaries, 3 prequel videos, a gag reel, Q&A with series creator David Simon and the creative team, and multiple behind-the-scenes documentaries and featurettes. As many of you know, the show has been reformatted from 4x3 to 16x9 for its HD release, but this has been done in consultation with Simon himself, who views it as a “valid alternate version of the series” (you can read his in-depth thoughts about this here on his blog). [Read on here…]

In feature news, Universal has set Michael Mann’s Blackhat for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/12. Extras will include 3 featurettes (Creating Reality, On Location Around the World, and The Cyber Threat).

Music Box Films is releasing Beloved Sisters on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/12.

MGM is reissuing The Terminator on Blu-ray on 5/5 (SRP $19.99). Presumably this is the same recently remastered version, just in new packaging (see below).

Anchor Bay and Starz are releasing The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Kiss of the Dragon, Supercross on Blu-ray on 5/5.

Fox has Black or White set for Blu-ray release on 5/5 as well.

The Cohen Film Collection is releasing the Chuck Workman’s Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles documentary on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/26.

Showtime has set Ray Donovan: The Complete Second Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/26.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing Masters of Sex: Season Two on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/5. Extras will include deleted scenes, 3 featurettes, and a BD-exclusive roundtable discussion.

PBS Distribution is releasing Fortitude on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/21, followed by Wolf Hall on both formats on 4/28.

And Anchor Bay and The Weinstein Company have set James Gray’s The Immigrant for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/7, starring Marion Cotillard.

In other release news, I know some of you are fans of Gerry Anderson’s The Thunderbirds. As you all know, The Complete Series is coming to Blu-ray on 6/9 from Shout! Factory. What you may not know, is that Fanderson U.K. (the official Gerry Anderson fan club) has released the complete Barry Gray score to the series as a 4-CD set containing more than 5 hours of restored music. You have to be a fan club member to buy the set, and it’s limited to just 1000 copies. Click here (or on the image below) for details. Thanks to Bits reader Robert H. for the heads-up.

A quick follow-up on our post about One Step Beyond from yesterday. As you know, Film Chest is releasing 70 of the original 96 episodes on DVD on 4/7. Many of you have asked about the remaining 26 episodes, so I passed along the question. It turns out that some of them aren’t public domain for one reason or another. In addition, source material for a few of them is only available in very poor quality and a couple of the episodes simply couldn’t be located (though Film Chest worked very hard to do so). So there you go.

“Cancer sucks. Everyone I know knows and loves someone who is either fighting or has fought this disease. Many of us have lost a loved one. It doesn’t look like the fight is going to end any time soon, so every bit counts.

Not every charity out there is on the up and up – and so that puts people on the defensive when it comes to donating; but let me tell you that both this organization and this particular kid are fighting the good fight. Evan’s father and I go a ways back. We worked together, played in an improv comedy troupe and I even got into a fight with his new brother-in-law at his wedding. Good times. Nonetheless, I have a soft spot in my heart for him and his family and I take great pride to knowing that Evan is a great kid who has donated his head to St. Baldrick’s every year since I can remember. St. Baldrick’s is a foundation dedicated to battling childhood cancer by raising funds through a network of dedicated volunteers – Evan being one of them.

I wish just hating cancer could cure it. Sadly it’s going to take money. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. - Doogan”

All right, we’ll leave you with a look at a bunch more new Blu-ray cover artwork for some of the titles listed above and more. As always, any time you order anything at all through our Amazon links, you’re helping to support our work here at The Bits and we really do appreciate it…

“I knew we had a good picture, but I had no idea that it would become such a staggering hit.” — producer-director Robert Wise

“Considering the degree to which most people pride themselves being cynical, I’m still surprised that a movie this heartfelt was so thoroughly embraced by so many people and continues to be. Perhaps folks aren’t as hard-edged as they pretend to be.” — film historian and author Barry Monush[Read more here...]

The Digital Bits is proud to present this retrospective article commemorating the golden anniversary of the release of The Sound of Music, the immensely popular Rodgers & Hammerstein musical motion picture starring Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins, Victor/Victoria) and Christopher Plummer (The Man Who Would Be King, Beginners) and directed by Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sand Pebbles).

The 50th anniversary tributes and celebrations for The Sound of Music have begun to appear. There is a new Blu-ray Disc and DVD released this week, and earlier this year a new book and special collector’s magazines have been published. Later this month, the award-winning film will be screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles with stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in attendance. And it’s now The Bits’ turn and so we celebrate the occasion with this article featuring a detailed listing of the film’s original record-breaking roadshow engagements and an interview with a quartet of film historians who discuss the movie’s significance and enduring appeal.

The Sound of Music, which was based upon the real-life adventures of the singing von Trapp family as well as the German films Die Trapp Familie (1956) and Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (1958) and the 1959 American stage production, was a true blockbuster (before the term was fashionable) and is noted, among other reasons, for being the first movie to break the box-office performance of Gone With the Wind, the longest tenured box-office champ at 26 years (but still the all-time record holder when accounting for inflation).

Although its overall box-office performance has since been eclipsed by more than 150 films, when adjusted for inflation, however, The Sound of Music rests comfortably at #3 behind Gone With the Wind and Star Wars and still holds many house records for gross and/or duration of engagement. (Prepare to have your mind blown when analyzing the engagement duration data in the roadshow list!) Whether you adore or loathe The Sound of Music, there’s no question the film was an unqualified success, the likes the industry had never seen and one that foreshadowed the blockbuster era.

So, without further ado….

PART 1: THE INTERVIEW

This segment of the article features an interview with film historians Kim Holston, Matthew Kennedy, Mike Matessino, and Barry Monush. The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a roundtable format.

Kim Holston is the author of Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973 (McFarland, 2013). Kim is a part-time librarian in the Multimedia Department of Chester County Library (Exton, PA) and lives in Wilmington, DE, with his wife Nancy and a menagerie of pets. In addition to Movie Roadshows, he is the author of various film and performing arts books, including Starlet (McFarland, 1988), Richard Widmark: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1990), Susan Hayward: Her Films and Life (McFarland, 2002), and (with Warren Hope) The Shakespeare Controversy (McFarland, 2nd ed., 2009), and recently Attila’s Sorceress (New Libri Press, 2014) and Naval Gazing: How Revealed Bellybuttons of the 1960s Signaled the End of Movie Cliches Involving Negligees, Men’s Hats and Freshwater Swim Scenes (BearManor Media, 2014). He is presently at work with Tom Winchester on a follow-up to their 1997 book, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Sequels, Series and Remakes.

Matthew Kennedy is the author of Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2014). He is a writer, film historian, and anthropologist living in San Francisco. He has written several other books, including Marie Dressler: A Biography (McFarland, 1999, paperback 2006), Edmund Goulding’s Dark Victory: Hollywood’s Genius Bad Boy (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), and Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (University Press of Mississippi, 2007). He is film and book critic for the respected Bright Lights Film Journal and currently teaches anthropology and film history at the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Mike Matessino produced and directed the documentary The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon along with a wealth of archival material for some home-video releases of The Sound of Music. Additionally he worked on the restoration of the music recordings and has written liner notes to accompany the soundtrack release. As part of his work with producer/director Robert Wise he served as Restoration Supervisor for The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In 2012 he produced, with Bruce Botnick, for La-La Land Records a 3-CD expanded score release of Jerry Goldsmith’s music for that film. His other soundtrack credits as producer, mixer, mastering engineer or liner notes writer include The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sand Pebbles, Empire of the Sun, 1941, Poltergeist, Alien, Gremlins, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Home Alone, Superman, and the Star Wars Trilogy. He also has directed behind-the-scenes documentaries on Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and The Last Starfighter.

Barry Monush is the author of The Sound of Music FAQ: All That’s Left to Know about Maria, the von Trapps, and Our Favorite Things (Applause, 2015). He is also the author of The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the Silent Era to 1965 (Applause, 2003), Everybody’s Talkin’: The Top Films of 1965-1969 (Applause, 2009) and Music on Film: West Side Story (Limelight, 2010). He updated Stanley Green’s Hollywood Musicals: Year by Year (Applause, 2010) and co-authored (with James Shreridan) Lucille Ball FAQ: Everything Left to Know about America’s Favorite Redhead (Applause, 2011). He joined the staff of Screen World in 1988, eventually becoming the editor of the annual publication. A lifelong film enthusiast, Monush is a researcher at the Paley Center for Media in New York City. He lives in Metuchen, New Jersey. Sunset Blvd. is his favorite movie.

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Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is The Sound of Music worthy of celebration on its 50th anniversary?

Kim Holston: The Sound of Music was a phenomenon, and an unexpected one. Who would have thought this musical would overtake Gone With the Wind (in 1965 dollars) to become the top grossing film of all time?

Matthew Kennedy: Perhaps the question should be “In what way is The Sound of Music NOT worthy of celebration”? It’s become a fundamental part of our movie pop culture, right there with The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Jaws, E.T. and Star Wars. This feels like celebrating the 50th anniversary of everybody’s favorite aunt.

Mike Matessino: That’s like asking why we should celebrate Independence Day! The Sound of Music is a movie phenomenon that is only truly equaled by Gone With the Wind and the original Star Wars. It cemented the Rodgers and Hammerstein legacy and 20th Century Fox wouldn’t exist today if it were not for that movie. But more importantly it is a movie that reached and touched people on a very deep level and is truly timeless. That’s the whole reason why we celebrate anniversaries, I think, because some things are timeless.

Barry Monush: There are very few works that have endured so completely, well-beyond the era in which they debuted, as The Sound of Music has. It is an instantly recognizable touchstone for not only those of us who first experienced it in the 1960s, but for subsequent generations, and that sort of impact cannot be underestimated. While researching my book I was very pleased to see how many people were quick to share fond memories of seeing it at some point in their lives.

Coate: How is The Sound of Music significant within the musical genre?

Holston: It was the apotheosis of the roadshow musical: lengthy because of the plethora of songs, all of which are memorable, Julie Andrews at the top of her game and already beloved for Mary Poppins.

Kennedy: The Sound of Music had its musical origins on Broadway. It’s not an original screen musical as is The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Gigi, and Mary Poppins. That said, it’s just about the smartest adaptation from stage to screen ever made. A few of the songs (My Favorite Things, The Lonely Goatherd) were shuffled to strengthen their meaning within the story, the casting proved to be ideal, the budget was lavish, and, most wisely, it was shot on location in Salzburg and the Austrian Alps. Musically, it’s quite strong, though many claim its score is inferior to other Rodgers and Hammerstein work, including Oklahoma!, Carousel, and South Pacific. That may be, but as a film The Sound of Music is light years beyond the others, largely due to the excellent decisions made in pre-production.

Matessino: Within the film musical genre, The Sound of Music is deceptive in just how significant it is. Consider the Do-Re-Mi sequence. I last screened the movie with a colleague who hadn’t seen it in a while, and he basically said that with that sequence Robert Wise invented the music video. And he’s right. The way that sequence shows the passage of time and changes location was simply not done prior to that. Bob worked all of that out with Ernie Lehman, Saul Chaplin, Maurice Zuberano and the choreographers, Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood, and it was a groundbreaking idea. As an aside, Bob also did something very clever with it. When cast and crew returned from Austria over the July 4th weekend in 1964, there was a short break before they resumed filming at Fox. Before they started, Bob screened the edited Do-Re-Mi and you can imagine how that revitalized everyone to complete the picture… because they all now had a unified vision of what it was going to be. And look how some other songs in the movie are handled. First of all, music is itself a character in the story and a lot of the songs are actually occurring as part of the narrative. This was tremendously helpful in getting past the potential jarring moment in musicals where someone starts singing out of nowhere. Ernie Lehman crafted the dialogue very carefully when songs start, and most often, including Do-Re-Mi, Edelweiss and So Long, Farewell, the characters actually “announce” that a song is about to happen. And for other songs the settings were chosen so that the singing seemed acceptable, the lush romantic setting of the gazebo, for example. Climb Ev’ry Mountain and Maria are done within the confines of an abbey. Notice also how the added song I Have Confidence was handled: it begins with Maria in shadow, establishing that this is a self-reflexive moment and really all happening in her mind, much like Over the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz. And as for the title song, the photography of the opening scene is so majestic, and the helicopter shot that introduces Julie so powerful that someone bursting into song seems the most natural thing in the world. The Sound of Music is a movie musical that truly works, and mainly because the package is clearly marked: it’s about MUSIC and its power to move people and change lives.

Monush: The Sound of Music is the blueprint for how to take a work that was enjoyed on the stage but always considered flawed and improve it to the degree that even those who hold live theater sacred above movie adaptations think of this version as the more significant one. It also contains one of the great scores by two of the most important names in songwriting history, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. In the musical genre, it is held in high esteem for the effortless manner in which it blends songs and story.

Coate: When did you first see The Sound of Music and what was your reaction?

Holston: I saw The Sound of Music with my mother in July of 1965 at the Midtown Theater in Philadelphia. I was 17 and really didn’t know what to expect, but when the curtains parted and the music began and the camera zoomed in on that hillside I just knew it was going to be great. A sidenote: 20th Century Fox sued the William Goldman theater chain to keep it from ending Sound of Music’s run there on November 15th (1966). It had begun at the Midtown on March 17th, 1965, and the studio wanted to keep it there through the ‘66 holidays. It was still making over $8,000 a week.

Kennedy: I don’t have a clear memory of the first time I saw The Sound of Music. I was very young. I had the LP, and memorized it. I remember seeing a revival of it in a theater in the early 1970s. That was such magnificent cornball bliss! I had a happy childhood, but, oh, I wanted to be a von Trapp Singer!

Matessino: The Sound of Music was my mother’s favorite movie and she took me to see it when I was very young when it played as a revival at a local theater. Like every other kid I was charmed by the songs and the scenery and I was very fortunate to have gotten the big-screen impact of it on my first viewing. Not long after that it played on network TV for the first time and then there were several years of tuning in for the annual airing.

Monush: I saw the film during its reserved-seat engagement at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in October of 1965. The movie held my attention from start to finish, which was quite impressive considering it was three hours long and I was all of six years old. I could recall select images, scenes and musical sequences quite vividly for years after the fact. Since I was seeing this with very little information before going into the theater, I got to witness the famous opening scene for the very first time, up there on the big screen, with no previous point of reference and I remember it being genuinely awesome. Although I was too young to understand the full details behind the terror of the Nazis, I remember being tremendously moved by the image of the family escaping over the mountains at the finale.

Coate: Why do you think The Sound of Music was so incredibly popular?

Holston: It was popular because it was made by and starred professionals. It had the music, it had real-life drama, and it had Richard Haydn’s witty repartee.

Kennedy: Ah, the billion dollar question. The clichéd answer is “children, Nazis, and nuns,” but nobody really knows. This was demonstrated in the years immediately following The Sound of Music, when a succession of would-be Sound of Musics nearly bankrupted their studios with tepid box-office and/or catastrophic cost overruns. That would be Camelot, Doctor Dolittle, Star!, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Hello, Dolly!, Paint Your Wagon, Sweet Charity, Darling Lili, and others. Nothing captured the singular magical combination of story, song, cast, and timing of The Sound of Music.

Matessino: The popularity of The Sound of Music, apart from the undeniable quality of the filmmaking, has to do with the fact that it addressed three themes that every human being deals with… one, the relationship between parents and children… two, finding your purpose in life… three, standing by your principles. The Sound of Music is a story (and basically a true one) in which a family has to deal with all three of these. It breaks down the barriers and compels an audience to look within and realize that these are the important things in life. As it happens in an almost fairy tale-like setting, there is an archetypal, almost mythical resonance to it. It transcends all cultural and language barriers and no matter how the story is told it retains its power and it will forever.

Monush: This is the question on which all of us can only speculate. Considering the degree to which most people pride themselves being cynical, I’m still surprised that a movie this heartfelt was so thoroughly embraced by so many people and continues to be. Perhaps folks aren’t as hard-edged as they pretend to be. For me, it’s simply a tremendous piece of filmmaking, thanks to the skills of director Robert Wise, writer Ernest Lehman, and the rest of the company working at the top of their game. Julie Andrews’ contribution cannot be underestimated because what could have been merely a good movie became something very special indeed due to her participation. It’s a triumphant story that makes you care about what happens to its characters, and leaves you with the feeling that what you have just seen has been both enormously entertaining and emotionally satisfying. Perhaps that’s what does the trick.

Coate: Where does The Sound of Music rank among star Julie Andrews’ body of work?

Holston: In Julie Andrews’ oeuvre, it is equal and maybe surpasses Mary Poppins. It might be a matter of taste. Poppins was set-bound, Sound of Music was filmed mostly in the great outdoors.

Kennedy: If, like me, you find Julie Andrews more adept at musical roles than dramatic ones, then I’d say it’s her best. Hands down. In her debut film Mary Poppins, she’s quite starchy and clipped, which may suit the character, but in The Sound of Music she seems to be having a better time, as though she’s loosening up and getting the hang of film acting. The gaiety of Thoroughly Modern Millie is forced, and she’s downright miscast in Star! and Darling Lili. That nearly sums up her musical career save for Victor/Victoria, which is fun. Le Jazz Hot is a terrific set piece for her, but the material doesn’t suit her quite like Music. Julie Andrews and Maria von Trapp is a perfect match.

Matessino: It’s an iconic performance, no doubt about that. If you study it carefully you see that she knew just when to add total realism (watch her carefully when Richard Haydn takes her by the arm to get her to join the party) and when to not take things too seriously. She brings real bite to the role that is very much reflective of how the real Maria was. Julie is an amazing performer with a wide range, and while she totally understands the impact she had with this role and with Mary Poppins I think she has confidence (pun intended) that discerning viewers will be interested in the many other things she has done.

Monush: Andrews has always been one of the entertainment industry’s true treasures. She was not merely a great singer, but an outstanding actress as well. This is indeed her best performance, because she never once makes the character sanctimonious or self-conscious in her efforts to please, as other actresses might have. She’s the one who pulls viewers into the story from the start, and makes you believe it every step of the way.

Coate: Where does The Sound of Music rank among director Robert Wise’s body of work?

Holston: As it has been said of director Wise, he was a chameleon who couldn’t be pigeon-holed. He made successful, even seminal films in all genres: The Body Snatcher; Curse of the Cat People; The Set-Up; The Day the Earth Stood Still; Executive Suite; Run Silent, Run Deep; Odds Against Tomorrow; I Want To Live!; The Haunting; The Sand Pebbles. In fact, Wise’s record for good to excellent films is outstanding. The Sound of Music was especially significant for him because it brought him his second directing Oscar (West Side Story being the first).

Kennedy: Robert Wise’s career was absolutely amazing. Early on he edits Citizen Kane and (controversially) The Magnificent Ambersons, then directs everything from horror (The Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher) to film noir (Born to Kill, The House on Telegraph Hill), science-fiction (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain), glossy soap opera (Executive Suite), heavy drama (I Want to Live!), and a top drawer spookfest (The Haunting). It’s very hard, perhaps futile, to compare any of those with The Sound of Music. We can only shake our heads that they were all directed by the same man. His first Oscar came for directing West Side Story, which may be of the same genre as The Sound of Music, but most comparisons end there. I admire several of Wise’s credits, but nothing clicked like The Sound of Music. He somewhat admitted this, and like everyone else, couldn’t quite pinpoint why The Sound of Music became such a phenomenon.

Matessino: For a movie that Bob did simply because there was a hole in his schedule while waiting for location problems to be worked out for The Sand Pebbles, I think it ranks as a masterful achievement. He, Solly and Ernie had already had a great success with West Side Story and here they were doing it all over again, winning Oscars and saving a studio in the process. Creatively I think it shows that Bob Wise could do anything and also that he knew how to find just the right people on both sides of the camera. There is a tremendous power to the filmmaking and Bob was always proud of his work on the picture.

Monush: In a career full of impressive credits, this film is indeed among his finest accomplishments. Wise was thoroughly deserving of the Academy Award he received for his efforts here, because of the incredible control he brought to potentially sticky material, telling the story with taste, humor, and great emotional understanding.

Coate: In what way was it beneficial for The Sound of Music to be initially exhibited as a roadshow?

Holston: It was the golden age of roadshows, and to be a roadshow was to be prestigious. Buying seats in advance made it an event.

Kennedy: It made a huge difference; it was 20th Century Fox’s way of saying “Pay attention! This is a very important movie!” If marketed well, the anticipation of roadshow treats (elaborate theater, reserved seats, souvenir program, overture, intermission, exit music) was high indeed. The Sound of Music rolled out from its initial engagements on single screens in New York and Los Angeles to other major urban centers within a month, then spread to secondary markets after that. There was an alchemy at work here, too, as the timing and pacing drew huge crowds. But it was the film itself that accounted for the very high repeat business. Some patrons saw The Sound of Music over and over and over and over and over again and still couldn’t get enough. People were hooked on it like it was opium.

Matessino: It was a different era, as the authors who are commenting on the subject will elaborate on. A roadshow musical based on a hit Broadway musical created the same kind of sense of importance and anticipation as going to live theater. When you have a “hard ticket” and reserved seating sold in advance for a movie playing at just one big theater, you create buzz and word-of-mouth, and that works if the movie is good. Bob’s publicist, Mike Kaplan, worked his magic for Fox on The Sound of Music and it paid off in spades.

Monush: Roadshow was a great idea for bringing special attention to select movies, allowing them to be seen in the grand manner they deserved, and to roll out slowly throughout the year (or even longer) rather than hit theaters in mass bookings all at once. This form of exhibition gave audiences greater opportunities to see movies in theaters, where they were intended, rather than have to catch them during very short runs, as is often the case today, or opt for them on inferior home viewing formats.

Coate: Would the roadshow concept work for today’s movies?

Holston: I doubt it. It is now possible to purchase tickets in advance for the initial showings of some films, but those tickets are not for specific seats and you don’t get deluxe programs and overtures and intermissions. Ever since Billy Jack and Jaws, people are used to seeing a new film immediately somewhere in their vicinity. Instant gratification. Today no one’s going to drive into a city to see a movie that won’t come to the suburbs for months or a year — if it’s successful. That’s what happened with the likes of West Side Story, Cleopatra and The Sound of Music. Plus, there are hardly any huge art deco movie theaters left in inner cities. As I researched my book I realized that roadshows and movie palaces existed symbiotically. The roadshow depended on palatial theaters — and big premieres. Not to mention concentration of people in cities. Suburbs, cars, and mall theaters helped kill the “experience.”

Kennedy: I don’t think so. Roadshows played hard to get, beginning in big cities on single screens. Today we know most all movie will be available in many forms via the home markets, TV, streaming, etc. Roadshows were based on limited opportunity to see them before they disappeared into the vaults. Opening a huge movie on a handful of screens and withholding it from a larger audience for weeks or months has become too risky. When roadshows were not well received, word of mouth killed them. Now with thousands of screens showing the same “blockbuster” in its opening weekend, audiences are lured in before negative word of mouth spreads. Maybe that’s changing, too. Nowadays audiences text and tweet “this movie sucks” far and wide before its first matinee is over.

Matessino: The concept would only work today if you had a movie that was truly a phenomenon (and not a pre-packaged one), something people felt that the theater was the only place to see it. The word of mouth would have to be unanimously positive. And going a step further, the current model would have to be completely shattered by not announcing when the movie would be available on video or for streaming. Sadly, those dates are announced when a movie opens in theaters, so basically the model wouldn’t work unless you had the right movie.

Monush: Alas, the mind-set of today’s audiences is to receive movies as quickly and conveniently as possible, with very little consideration for how they see them, as long as they are not obliged to wait or make too much effort. Because of this sense of “entitlement,” I don’t know if people could even grasp the concept of paying special prices and reserving specific seats in advance to see a movie that would require you to make a special trip to see it.

Coate: Kim, what was the objective with your book, Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973?

Holston: I wanted to recapture an era of moviegoing when certain movies were given extra special attention and presented as an event akin to attending the ballet, opera or a concert. As I did the research and discovered that reserved-seat roadshows can be traced back to the silent era — and not just for Birth of a Nation and Intolerance — I aimed to describe the unique and sometimes impromptu distribution and exhibition methods used. Films such as Cleopatra and The Sound of Music are given longer entries because of pre-release media attention and hullabaloo, post-release popularity, or especially in the case of 2001: A Space Odyssey, artistic/cinematic significance.

Coate: Matthew, what was the objective with your book, Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s?

Kennedy: Roadshow! investigates film musicals after The Sound of Music that were for the most part critical and financial disappointments. I wanted to better understand why this beloved genre moved to the fringes of popular culture by the early ‘70s when it had been so vibrant ten years earlier. It made sense to me to begin Roadshow! with The Sound of Music (and additional lead-in with Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady) because it was the summit of the commercial success of film musicals. Roadshow musicals post-Sound of Music covertly and overtly sought to ride that wave of success.

Coate: Mike, what was the objective with your Sound of Music documentary and LaserDisc supplements? Are you pleased with the manner in which those materials have been ported over to subsequent home-video releases?

Matessino: There was no initial objective for the documentary because one was not originally planned. It was 1993 and back then it was a big deal just to get a studio to agree to do a few local on-camera interviews. That was going to be the extent of it initially, plus a commentary, trailers and stills. I had just met Robert Wise and started working with him to supervise the video transfers of some of his pictures and got involved in contacting people who’d worked with him. At that time we were also working on interviewing people for Star!, his 1968 Gertrude Lawrence musical biography, which also starred Julie Andrews but had not been a success. The way we got to do interviews for that was by agreeing to do Sound of Music interviews in tandem, thus splitting the cost between the two projects. But on The Sound of Music it was just going to be some of the filmmakers at first and none of the actors. At that time, the artists who’d played the children in the picture were all feeling a little short-changed because they had done a lot over the years without being compensated. But then Charmian Carr agreed to be interviewed because she was good friends with Bob and she would sort of speak for the rest.

That was supposed to be the end of it but then, out of nowhere, came a call from Christopher Plummer’s agent in New York. At that time everyone assumed he had negative feelings about the movie, and I was expecting to be told that I could not use clips or photos of Chris, or something to that effect, but to my shock I was asked if Chris could record some audio recollections to include in the project. I immediately asked if he would agree to being interviewed on camera if I could come to New York and the answer was yes! I immediately called Fox to let them know and then got in touch with the Rodgers & Hammerstein office in New York. They, in turn, put me in touch with the Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont and all of a sudden I was arranging to do about a dozen interviews on the east coast. Two days before I left for New York, I got a call from Bob. Nick Hammond, who plays Friedrich in the movie was in his office and Bob told him what was going on. He was leaving for Sydney the next day and asked if there any way to get an on-camera interview done. We quickly found a studio to do it and he went straight from there to the airport. The next day I was off to New York for interviews there and then spent four days at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont.

At that time there really was not that much synergy between the von Trapp family, the R&H people, and the filmmakers. There were separate “camps,” if you will, each with its own emphasis on what the property represented. But I recognized that there was one big story in there where everything and everyone was connected. In all humility I feel that I broke down a lot of walls with this documentary. When I got back to California I got a call from Mike Kaplan, the publicist on the picture originally, who was involved in everything that was going on. He said that Julie had reconsidered doing the interview. I supposed this happened because she had heard Chris had done it. The condition was that we do the interview at her office on the same day that we were having a 25th anniversary screening of Star! at the Director’s Guild because she’d already be in hair and make-up for that. That was fine with me, but because we had to put a camera crew together I was able to get another interview day out of it and so I was able to add Dee Dee Wood (also done at Julie’s office), editor William Reynolds, and Dick Zanuck, who was the head of production at Fox at the time the movie was made. When all was said and done I had 25 on-camera interviews and the opportunity to really tell the story from beginning to end… the real life story of the von Trapps that led to Maria writing her book, that led to the German-language film, that led to the Broadway show, that led to the movie being made at 20th Century Fox and saving the studio from bankruptcy.

In my opinion, the bar had been set a few years earlier with Jeffrey Selznick’s documentary for Turner, The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind, which, coincidentally was narrated by Christopher Plummer. I still feel that it’s possibly the best behind-the-scenes documentary ever done and essential viewing for anyone interested in any aspect of the moviemaking business. If there is any other classic movie that could withstand that kind of approach, it is The Sound of Music. The history behind the movie and the magnitude of its success is simply a great story and I had the opportunity to tell it… but not necessarily the budget. So a lot of things were done very quick-and-dirty, but I tried to make sure the story and the interviews were put together in a compelling way. Some wonderful things happened, such as getting Claire Bloom (who’d worked with Bob on The Haunting) to be narrator. I felt that I really wanted a female narrator — which was rarely done at the time, even on cable specials — and her voice was authoritative yet had the softness that I was going for. We also had use of the music thanks to the simultaneous work on the soundtrack CD that accompanied the LaserDisc set.

The documentary was on its own VHS tape in the UK release of the movie and then it was carried over to the first DVD release. On the second one they wanted to promote all-new material but on the third one, in 2010, they put together everything and even included things I’d wanted in 1995 but didn’t get, such as the appearance of Maria von Trapp on The Julie Andrews Hour and the great clip of Julie and Carol Burnett doing The Pratt Family Singers sketch in 1962 on their first special together, Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. I’ve always wanted to go back and polish up the documentary technically, and perhaps see if it could be expanded a bit (the running time was dictated by the restrictions of LaserDisc), but I’m glad it’s still included on releases of the film. It was the very first time Julie and Chris both participated in the same project and right after that they began appearing together, first on talk shows, then on a live TV production of On Golden Pond, and then in a touring Christmas show. I also think that Plummer’s gradual change of heart with regard to The Sound of Music began with my interview. I remember screening the documentary for Bob, Ernie and Solly at the Director’s Guild and they were amazed at what I’d gotten out of Chris. The other shocking thing was that before the documentary was finished we’d lost two of the interviewees, illustrator Maurice Zuberano and arranger/conductor Irwin Kostal. And now, all of the filmmakers are gone and we just have the cast, and in the intervening years they have all bonded together. There is a synergy now between them and R&H and with the von Trapps and with the tourism board in Salzburg, and I can’t help but feel that my project was what cleared the weeds from the pathway so that all of that could happen. It’s all part of one big story again.

Coate: Barry, what was the objective with your book, The Sound of Music FAQ: All That’s Left to Know about Maria, the von Trapps, and Our Favorite Things?

Monush: I wanted to go beyond a simple “making of” book and explore all aspects of this work, including the Trapp Family’s true story in relation to how the musical dramatized it; the musical’s many incarnations on stage; the score and its place in recording history; the staggering impact The Sound of Music made on motion picture box offices in the 1960s and its enduring popularity on various home viewing formats and television; and its unique place in pop culture history.

Coate: What is the legacy of The Sound of Music?

Holston: It seamlessly merged the natural world with the artificiality of impromptu singing and dancing, which was the real art of the Hollywood musical, as distinct from the “stage door” musicals and biopics. Interestingly, most of the Fox musicals from the ‘30s through the ‘50s were “backstage” films where the entertainment took place in the theater. One might also opine that the filmmakers caught lightning in a bottle: Julie Andrews.

Kennedy: The short term legacy was the green lighting of so many musicals, with hits (Oliver!, Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret) sprinkled among the misses. Tastes changed radically by the 1970s, and safe money was on low-budget films appealing to young audiences. Musicals went into retreat, and lost their central place in our film-going culture. For a long time it was very un-hip to love The Sound of Music. Now it’s seen as a cherished relic that will never be duplicated. It’s one of those rare films that became a widely shared experience, each of us carrying specific memories of when and where we saw it and how we feel about it. It’s in our collective bloodstream.

Matessino: I think I’ve touched on all my answers to this… it’s the themes that the movie addresses, the fact that it saved a studio, that it’s the crowning achievement of its songwriters, and that it will forever stand as a reason to explore the entire body of work of the great Robert Wise.

Monush: It is the rare movie of the past that continues to be instantly recognized by a majority of the world’s citizens. It represents the very best of what its era had to offer, entertainment produced on a lavish scale but without pretentions; presentations that appealed to both adult and young audiences without being alienating to either.

Coate: Thank you, Kim, Matthew, Mike, and Barry, for participating and for sharing your thoughts about The Sound of Music on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

PART 2: THE ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENTS — UNITED STATES & CANADA

What follows is a list of the known domestic theatrical “hard ticket” roadshow engagements of The Sound of Music, arranged chronologically by date of premiere. The duration of the engagements, measured in weeks, has been included to illustrate the film’s popularity.

These roadshow engagements of The Sound of Music were exclusive engagements that preceded any general-release exhibition. Out of hundreds of films released during 1965, The Sound of Music was among only ten given deluxe roadshow treatment in the United States and Canada. Many of these presentations were screened in 70-millimeter with six-track stereophonic sound; the rest were shown in 35mm reduction prints (many with stereophonic sound). Much like a stage show, these bookings featured reserved seating, an advanced admission price, were shown an average of only ten times per week, and included an intermission. Souvenir program booklets were sold, as well.

The music (and the money coming in) didn’t end with the roadshow release. Beginning in late 1966, 20th Century Fox placed The Sound of Music into a “Special Selective Engagement” release, which was, essentially, a modified roadshow in that the bookings were area exclusives with reserved performances, scheduled showtimes, and higher-than-normal admission prices. The distinction between this stage of its release and the original roadshow release is that seats, in most situations, were not reserved. It was at this stage that most small and mid-sized cities that did not run the film on a reserved-seat basis first played the film. It was also during this stage that many large cities began their first of numerous return engagements. The majority of these engagements were shown in 35mm.

The “General” release (“Continuous Performances at Popular Prices”) followed the “Special Selective” release in mid-to-late 1967, depending on the market, and it wasn’t until 1968 that many tiny one- or two-theater towns or drive-in theaters played the film for the first time. The film, amazingly, remained in circulation through the summer of 1969, at which time several theaters ran a “Farewell” engagement. Ultimately, The Sound of Music played over 9,000 engagements during its record run of four and a half years.

In North America, the film was officially re-released during 1973 and 1978 and in a limited 25th anniversary re-release during 1990. The film’s network television debut broadcast was in 1976, and its first home-video release was in 1979. In recent years “Sing-A-Long” presentations have become popular, and in 2001 the film was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

And…if you thought the performance of The Sound of Music in the United States and Canada was impressive, keep reading!

PART 3: THE ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENTS — INTERNATIONAL

What follows is a list of the roadshow engagements of The Sound of Music shown outside the United States and Canada. Note that this segment is incomplete and accounts for a sampling of the world’s major cities to give a sense of the film’s global distribution and regional appeal.

SOURCES/REFERENCES:

The primary references for this project were numerous newspaper articles, film reviews and theater advertisements archived on microfilm; and the periodicals Boxoffice, The Film Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Motion Picture Herald, Motion Picture Exhibitor, Movie Marketing, and Variety. General references included the books George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success (George Lucas Books/Harper Collins, 2010) and The Sound of Music: The Making of America’s Favorite Movie (Julia Antopol Hirsch, Contemporary Books, 1993); the websites CinemaTour.com and CinemaTreasures.org; and the motion picture The Sound of Music (1965, 20th Century-Fox).

This is a revised and updated version of a previously-published article. Research was conducted at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt, Germany; Young Research Library (University of California Los Angeles); Southern Regional Library Facility (University of California Los Angeles); Margaret Herrick Library (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study), Beverly Hills, CA; Main Library (University of Illinois), Urbana, IL; as well as at several public libraries throughout the world.

Quick review side note: I’m also working on reviews of a few new BD titles as time permits, but know that you can expect to see reviews of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Interstellar as soon as they arrive in the post. [Read on here…]

In announcement news today, Paramount has just set Ava DuVernay’s Selma for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/5 (SRP $39.99 and $29.99), with the digital release expected on 4/21. For a nice change, it looks like you’ll get a decent slate of extras on the Blu-ray, including audio commentary by director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo, a second commentary with DuVernay, director of photography Bradford Young and editor Spencer Averick, deleted and extended scenes, a number of featurettes and video segments (including The Road to Selma, Recreating Selma, National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, Selma Student Tickets: Donor Appreciation, and Historical Newsreels), John Legend and Common’s Glory music video, and a photo gallery.

Warner Home Video has just announced The 6-disc The Golden Year Collection for Blu-ray release on 6/9 (SRP $69.96). The set will include 5 classic films from 1939, considered by many to be “Hollywood's Greatest Year”. They include Gone with the Wind, plus new-to-Blu-ray releases of Dodge City, Dark Victory, Ninotchka, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a new restoration of which will debut at the TCM Classic Film Festival in L.A. later this month. All five will be available as BD singles that same day for just $19.98 each. The sixth disc in the set will include the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Presents 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh, along with a number of vintage short and cartoons, including Breakdowns of 1939, Sons of Liberty, Drunk Driving, Prophet Without Honor, Sword Fishing (1939), Detouring America (1939), Peace on Earth (1939) and trailers (some of these are also included on the individual film discs).

Our friends at the Warner Archive have just released Challenge of the Gobots: The Series, Volume Two (1985-86) on MOD DVD, along with All at Sea (1957), The Doctor’s Dilemma (1958), The Alphabet Murders (1966), Where the Spies Are (1966), Our Mother’s House (1967), Best House in London (1968) and HBO’s Bill Maher: Live from DC (2014).

Lionsgate has just set Orange Is the New Black: Season Two for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/19. Extras will include BD/DVD-exclusive audio commentaries with cast and crew on the episodes Hugs Can Be Deceiving and You Also Have a Pizza, plus 4 featurettes (Back Before the Potato Sack, Orange Peeled, A Walk Around the Block, and BD/DVD-exclusive audio commentaries with cast and crew on the episodes Hugs Can Be Deceiving and You Also Have a Pizza, plus 4 featurettes (Back Before the Potato Sack, Orange Peeled, A Walk Around the Block, and The VEE.I.P. Treatment).).

Meanwhile, Anchor Bay and TWC-Dimension will release Paddington on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/28, with digital arriving on 4/17.

Anchor Bay and RADiUS are releasing Everly on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/21.

And Anchor Bay and Amplify Releasing have set Little Accidents for DVD only release on 4/21.

Film Chest Media Group is releasing 70 of the 96 original episodes of the 1950s One Step Beyond TV series. Look for the 6-disc set on 4/7.

By the way, are there any fans of Zoolander out there? It was apparently announced at Paris Fashion Week that Zoolander 2 is coming to theaters on 2/12/2016. Make your plans accordingly.

And finally today, just a quick update on the status of CBS’ recent My Fair Lady restoration. I’ve checked with sources and learned that it’s definitely still coming to Blu-ray, but apparently the studio is working with Fathom Events to hold nationwide theatrical screening of the newly restored film this fall and wants to coordinate the release with that. So expect the Blu-ray now to be probably a 3rd Quarter release in time for the holidays.

In announcement news today, Paramount has set The Gambler for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/28, with digital due on 4/10. Extras will include deleted and extended scenes, plus 5 featurettes (including Mr. Self Destruct: Inside The Gambler, Dark Before Dawn: The Descent of The Gambler, Changing the Game: Adaptation, In the City: Locations, and Dressing the Players: Costume Design).

Sony has set The Wedding Ringer for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/28 as well, with digital due on 4/14. Extras on both will include “select scenes” commentary with director Jeremy Garelick and Josh Gad, and the Going to the Chapel of Love featurette. The Blu-ray will add 15 exclusive deleted scenes, 5 outtake reels, Line-o-Rama, and Aloe Blacc’s Can You Do This music video. [Read on here…]

Sony will also release Mr. Turner on Blu-ray, DVD and digital on 5/5. Both disc versions will include audio commentary with writer/director Mike Leigh, the Many Colours of Mr. Turner featurette, and a deleted scene. The Blu-ray adds the exclusive The Cinematic Palette: The Cinematography of Mr. Turner featurette.

Meanwhile, Scream Factory has announced that their upcoming Mad Max: Collector’s Edition will include (due 5/5) will include all-new interviews with Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel and director of photography David Eggby, along with audio commentary by Eggby, art director Jon Dowding, special effects artist Chris Murray, and Tim Ridge, 2 featurettes (Mel Gibson: The Birth of a Superstar and Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon), trailers and TV spots, photo galleries. The disc will also include both the original Australian English audio and the U.S. English dubbed audio.

Here’s something cool for you catalog fans: MGM and Fox are releasing a Spaceballs: “Your Helmet Is So Big” Edition Blu-ray on 4/28. Extras will include a digital copy, the ability to watch the movie at Ludicrous Speed, audio commentary by Mel Brooks, additional commentary tracks in Mawgese and Dinkese, the Spaceballs: The Documentary documentary, featurettes (including Force Yourself!, Spaceballs and the Skroobing of Sci-Fi, In Conversation: Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and John Candy: Comic Spirit), a storyboard-to-film comparison, Film Flubs, 3 galleries (Behind the Movie, The Costumes, The Art), the exhibitor trailer with Mel Brooks introduction, and the original theatrical trailer.

Universal and Focus Films have set David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/14. The only extra is a digital copy version. You can see the cover artwork below.

HBO’s The Newsroom: The Complete Third (and Final) Season will street on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/16.

Arrow Video will has set Jack Hill’s 1967 Spider Baby (starring Lon Chaney. Jr) for Blu-ray release on 6/9. Arrow has also set The Happiness of the Katakuris for Blu-ray release on 6/16.

Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone will be released on Blu-ray on 6/23 (SRP $29.95).

Blink will release Huan Vu’s 2010 film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space on Blu-ray on 6/23, limited to just 1000 copies.

Cult Epics has set Alberto Lattuada’s Stay As You Are for Blu-ray release on 5/12.

Well Go USA will release These Final Hours on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/12.

As many of you know, Sam Simon was the co-creator of TV’s The Simpsons. Prior to that he wrote episodes of Taxi, Cheers, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, and The Tracey Ullman Show. Simon passed away on Sunday after a long battle with cancer. He was 59. You can read more here at Variety.

Albert Maysles, meanwhile, was a legendary documentary filmmaker, whose work included the highly-acclaimed Grey Gardens and the Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter, as well as The Beales of Grey Gardens and Salesman. He was also the cinematographer on When We Were Kings and many others. Maysles passed away last Thursday at the age of 88. You can read more here via The New York Times.

We’ll leave you today with a look at more new Blu-ray Disc cover artwork, including a few of the titles mentioned above. As always, clicking on the covers will take you to their respective Amazon.com pre-order pages (and ordering through our links helps to support The Bits)...

One other quick note: A lot of readers sent messages and e-mails while I was away. It’s going to take time to go through them all and reply, but we’ll get to them all as soon as possible. Thanks!

In release news today, Scream Factory has set a double feature BD of Ghosthouse and Witchery for BD release on 6/30. Also, Scream’s Dog Soldiers comes out on the format on 6/23, with a double feature of Tentacles and Reptilicus due on 6/16, and both Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland due on 6/9.

Blue Underground has Escape from the Bronx, 1990: The Bronx Warriors and The New Barbarians coming to Blu-ray and DVD on 6/30. The company has set Man, Pride and Vengeance for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/26 as well.

Warner will also release Pretty Little Liars: The Complete Fifth Season on DVD only on 6/2.

In addition to First Men in the Moon and Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twilight’s 3/10 Blu-ray titles also include The Bounty, Solomon and Sheba and U-Turn.

Magnolia Home Entertainment releases the underwater thriller Pioneer on BD and DVD on 3/10.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release 50 to 1 on DVD and digital on 4/28.

Olive Films is bringing King of the Hill: The Complete Ninth Season and King of the Hill: The Complete Tenth Season to DVD only on 4/7.

PBS Distribution will release NOVA: Big Bang Machine and Nature: Penguin Post Office on DVD only on 3/17. NOVA: Building Wonders and Nature: Owl Power follow on 3/31.

Entertainment One has Outcast coming on BD, DVD and digital on 3/31, starring Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen.

Film Chest Media Group is releasing a “digitally restored” edition of the classic WWII documentary series Victory at Sea on DVD on 3/17. For the record, it’s presented in the original 4x3 aspect ratio.

Anchor Bay is releasing Halt and Catch Fire: The Complete First Season on Blu-ray, DVD and digital on 5/5.

And Well Go USA Entertainment will release Supremacy on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/21.

In other news today, I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that actor Harrison Ford crashed his vintage WWII aircraft in Santa Monica yesterday afternoon and was injured, though fortunately not seriously. It’ll take a lot more than engine failure to take out our man Dr. Jones. Though if they ever do make another Indy film, that plane wreckage would make a great Easter egg among all the crates of artifacts and treasures in the “Hangar 51” warehouse.

Finally today, in another bit of sad news for Star Trek fans, longtime film producer Harve Bennett has passed away. In addition to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Bennett also developed and produced TV’s The Mod Squad, and produced The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Gemini Man, and Salvage 1. He was 84. You can read more here at Variety.

We’ll leave you with more new Blu-ray cover art, featuring some of the titles mentioned above...

Now then, back on the subject of Amazon’s latest studio dispute, we’ve learned that the current situation involves not just Lionsgate, but Miramax and A&E too, which are distributed by Lionsgate. Hopefully, this will be resolved soon. Thanks to Bits reader Dennis L. for additional info.

In new announcement news for you this afternoon, RCA is slated to release the HBO series Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways on Blu-ray and DVD on 4/7 (SRP $29.98 and $19.98). Both versions will include more than 3 hours of bonus content, including 10 extended interviews and never-before-seen footage. If you haven’t seen it, the 8-episode documentary series was directed by Dave Grohl and follows the band through eight different cities around the country as they record one song (from their recent album of the same name) in each city. Stops include Chicago, Washington DC (technically Arlington), Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles (technically Joshua Tree), New Orleans, Seattle and NYC. What’s great about the series is that it’s actually much less a show about the band and their music, and more about the history of the music scene in each city. Among those who appear in the documentary along with the band are Tony Joe White, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat and Fugazi, Paul Stanley from Kiss, Joe Walsh from The Eagles, Mike D from the Beastie Boys, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Dolly Parton, Cyril Neville, Nora Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Nancy Wilson from Heart, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, Zac Brown, Gary Clark, Jr., the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Trombone Shorty, Chuck D from Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and legendary engineers and producers like Steve Albini and Rick Rubin. If you’re a music fan, it’s well worth your time. You can see the cover artwork below.

Meanwhile, Warner Home Video has just set the TNT’s The Last Ship: The Complete First Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/9 (SRP $49.99 and $39.98).

Amazon is now taking pre-orders on the TBA Blu-ray and DVD release of Sony’s Justified: The Final Season.

And Shout! Factory has set The Last Unicorn: The Enchanted Edition for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/9.

Finally today, we have a bit of sad news to report. Steve Tannehill has died. Many of you longtime Bits readers will no doubt remember Steve’s DVD Resource Page. Way back in 1996, back when The Digital Bits was still an e-mail newsletter, and before other early sites like DVD File, DVD Review, DVD Verdict and The Home Theater Forum appeared on the scene, the DVD Resource Page was the place to go for DVD news and information online. Through the early days of the introduction of DVD and the infamous DVD/Divx format wars, Steve Tannehill became a great friend and colleague of mine. Not only was he a fellow early commentator and expert on the format – it’s hard to believe, but there were only a few of us online back then – he was an avid home theater and movie enthusiast. He was also a fine human being. Steve apparently suffered multiple cardiac arrests on February 28th. He was placed on life support, but passed away on March 2nd. I have always – and will always – cherish his friendship. If any of you would like to leave a few words of your own in his memory, you can do so on his Facebook page here. I’m sure his family and friends will appreciate it.

All right, we’ll leave you today with a look at a little more new BD cover artwork...

First up, Warner Home Video has set Falling Skies: The Complete Fourth Season for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/2.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced a Tak3n: Unrated Edition for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/21, starring Liam Neeson and Dougray Scott. The BD will include both the theatrical cut and the unrated version.

Fox has also set The Pyramid for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/5.

Speaking of Fox, here’s something awesome: Fox EVP of Home Entertainment James Finn has confirmed that the X-Men: Days of Future Past – Rogue Cut is coming to Blu-ray later this summer, though not in 3D because the extended material wasn’t finished in 3D. Special thanks to Bits reader Adam M. for the heads-up!

One last Fox note: It looks as if the Best Buy version of the Exodus: Gods and Kings – Deluxe Edition Blu-ray 3D Combo will have some kind of exclusive content. We’re not sure what, but Best Buy has a label on the listing on their website that says “Only @ Best Buy.”

Meanwhile, Shout! Factory has announced that they’re going to be releasing Gerry Anderson’s classic Thunderbirds: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/9 (SRP $69.97 for the BD and $49.97 for the DVD). The set will include all 32 episodes, plus the Launching Thunderbirds documentary and a Vintage Thunderbirds Publicity Brochure (via BD-Rom and DVD-Rom).

HBO will release Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/19.

Lionsgate has announced Orange Is the New Black: Season Two for BD and DVD release on 5/19 as well.

Universal has set a pair of new BD catalog titles for release on 5/12, including Wet Hot American Summer and Orgazmo.

Universal has also set The Boy Next Door for BD release on 4/28.

And Universal and Focus Films will release Kevin MacDonald’s The Black Sea on Blu-ray and DVD on 5/5.

On the animation front, Section 23 will release Patlabor: The Movie on Blu-ray on 5/5.

Discotek Media has also finally set 4/28 as the U.S. release date for Hayao Miyazaki’s Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro – Collection’s Edition on Blu-ray (SRP $29.95). in addition, the company will release the Free! Iwatobi Swim Club: Season 1 Collection, the Samurai Troopers TV Series DVD Collection, and the Samurai Pizza Cats DVD Collection reissue that same day.

Also today, Kino Lorber has announced more great catalog titles for Blu-ray release in May, including The Secret Invasion on 5/5, The McKenzie Break, The Premature Burial, They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, The Organization, and X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes on 5/12, and Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, Kings of the Sun, River of Death, Invitation to a Gunfighter, and The Escapees on 5/26.

We may have mentioned this before, but Olive Films has Firewalker, Bio-Dome, Blue Sky, Cooley High, and the Abbott and Costello film Dance with Me Henry coming to BD on 4/21, followed by Lord of the Flies, Teachers, Hollywood Shuffle, Little Man Tate, and Harry & Son on 4/28.

And last, but surely not least, our friends at Twilight Time have revealed terrific minimalist reverse cover artwork for their new BD releases of First Men in the Moon and Journey to the Center of the Earth. These titles and more are now available for pre-order on Screen Archives Entertainment. Take a look. Gorgeous!

In other news today, Ars Technica has posted an interesting story on a new hack, revealed by a security consultant at NCC Group, that allows Blu-ray Disc media to compromise the security of Windows PCs and most standalone Blu-ray players. The hack apparently takes advantage of BD-Java to run malicious executable files. Such exploits could then take advantage of the PC or player’s Internet connection for nefarious purposes. You can read more here.

“When I was a young boy, I learned that you could be different and still find your place. That in fact it’s the sum our differences – infinite diversity in infinite combinations – that makes us stronger together. I learned you should always try to do the right thing, even when no one else is looking and especially when it’s hard. I learned that to be a moral person is to respect other’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and to always consider them – to try and balance your positions with theirs rather than simply imposing your beliefs on them – to find a common ground that works for everyone. I learned that everyone deserves the freedom to find their own way, but you shouldn’t be selfish about it, because the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few… or the one. I learned that fighting is always the last resort, not the first. I learned that science and knowledge are empowering, that the spirit of discovery is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and that engaging in the exploration of the unknown – peacefully, together, and for the benefit of all – is among the most noble pursuits that human beings can engage in. Surprisingly, I learned all of this before I ever set foot in a school, because I learned it from Star Trek, where Leonard Nimoy was one of my favorite teachers. And I know I wasn’t alone. That’s a helluva great legacy, if you ask me.”

Thank you, Leonard, and farewell.

We’ll leave you today with a look at a bunch of new Blu-ray cover artwork. Click on the links to pre-order on Amazon (if available)…

Back tomorrow. Stay tuned…

- Bill Hunt

]]>billhunt@thedigitalbits.com (Bill Hunt)My Two CentsWed, 04 Mar 2015 13:39:54 -0800Criterion’s May slate announced, plus FOUR more new Blu-ray reviews & we’ll be back on March 4thhttp://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/021815_0010
http://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/021815_0010

Before we get to those though, I’ve got a quick note: This is going to be my last post on The Bits for a couple weeks. There are a couple reasons for this. First, I need a break. For the last several months now I’ve been working myself ragged without much of a let up. One of the problems – good to have, but problems no less – of running your own business is that there’s no end to the amount of hours you can work. So, I am sorely in need of a good staycation to recharge the batteries. The other reason, though, is that my wife and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year. Our actual anniversary is in the Fall, but we’re going to be busy then with other things, so we’ve decided to celebrate early this year. Anyway, I hope you all understand and I appreciate your patience. I’ll be back on March 4th to resume business as usual. Meanwhile, back to those reviews… [Read on here…]

We do have one bit of actual release news to report today, which is that Criterion has officially announced their May slate of Blu-ray releases, which are set to include: Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow (Spine #505 – Blu-ray and DVD), Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight (Spine #756 – Blu-ray, DVD and Hulu Plus), and Mark Rydell’s The Rose (Spine #757 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/19, and Carlos-Gavras’ The Confession (Spine #759 – Blu-ray, DVD and Hulu Plus) and State of Siege (Spine #760 – Blu-ray and DVD), and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Merchant of Four Seasons (Spine #758 – Blu-ray, DVD and Hulu Plus) on 5/26. You can visit the official website for all the details on extras.

Here’s a look at the Blu-ray cover artwork for these new Criterion titles (Amazon pre-orders are not available yet as of the time of this posting and will be added later)…

And that’s it for now. As I said, we’ll be back here at The Bits on March 4th to catch you all up on the latest Blu-ray and DVD release news. We’ll have more new disc reviews, and more new columns too. Thanks again for your patience and my very best to you all until then. Peace out!

In announcement news today, Warner has FINALLY made The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies official on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD on 3/24 (SRP $44.95 for the Blu-rays and $28.98 for the DVD). We covered all the details and posted the artwork yesterday, but one additional note is that the discs will include a behind-the-scenes video on the making of The Last Goodbye music video. We expect the Extended Edition of the film to be released on Blu-ray and DVD in November.

In other release news today, Anchor Bay and Starz have set Tim Burton’s Big Eyes for Blu-ray and DVD release on 4/14, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz. The disc will include The Making of Big Eyes featurette and Q&A Highlights.

Also, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has set Journey into the Pyramid for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/5, with a digital version arriving on 4/17.

And Lionsgate will release the After Dark title Bedlam on DVD on 4/28, with a digital release due on 4/14.

Here’s a little bit more cover artwork…

We’ll be back tomorrow with no less than FOUR more new Blu-ray reviews, so be sure to check back in the morning. Stay tuned…

“I do feel very lucky to have been a kid while this amazing renaissance of fantasy filmmaking was going on.… Star Wars, then Close Encounters, then Superman, then Alien, then Star Trek: The Motion Picture… at least in terms of going to the movies, those are two-and-a-half years I wish I could experience again. It was a truly magical time.” — Mike Matessino[Read more here...]

Mark A. Altman co-wrote and co-produced Free Enterprise, the beloved Star Trek-inspired cult classic starring William Shatner, as well as The Specials and DOA: Dead or Alive. In addition, he has been a writer and producer on several television series including Castle, Necessary Roughness and Femme Fatales, which he co-created. He is the founding publisher of Geek magazine and was the editor-in-chief of Sci-Fi Universe magazine. His books include Charting the Undiscovered Country: The Making of Trek VI (Cinemaker, 1992; co-authored with Ron Magid and Edward Gross), Great Birds of the Galaxy: Gene Roddenberry and the Creators of Trek (Boxtree, 1994; co-authored with Edward Gross) and Trek Navigator: The Ultimate Guide to the Entire Trek Saga (Back Bay, 1998; co-authored with Edward Gross). His new book, The Fifty Year Mission, co-written with Edward Gross, is an oral history of the Star Trek franchise and will be published in 2016 by St. Martin’s Press.

Jeff Bond is the author of The Music of Star Trek (Lone Eagle, 1999). He also wrote Danse Macabre: 25 Years of Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (included in The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box, Warner Bros., 2011) and is co-author with Joe Fordham of Planet of the Apes: The Evolution of the Legendary Franchise (Titan, 2014). Jeff is the former editor of Geek magazine, covered film music for The Hollywood Reporter for ten years, and has contributed liner notes to numerous CD soundtrack releases. He also has portrayed Dr. McCoy on the Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II Internet series.

Neil S. Bulk is a music editor and soundtrack producer. He co-produced Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection and was involved with over 150 other CD soundtrack/original score releases including the Lethal Weapon Soundtrack Collection, North by Northwest, The Blue Max, and Dennis the Menace. He recently was hired by Bruce Botnick (the executive producer on the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack album) to edit The Legacy Collection release of The Little Mermaid. Neil also appeared as a cadet in J.J. Abrams’ first Star Trek film.

Robert Meyer Burnett directed, co-wrote and edited Free Enterprise and co-produced and edited the supplemental material for the Blu-ray season sets of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise. He has worked as a consultant for Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. He co-produced Agent Cody Banks and The Hills Run Red, as well as directed and edited several episodes of the Cinemax series Femme Fatales. He is the owner of Ludovico Technique, which specializes in the production of Value Added Material for DVD and Blu-ray releases. He has produced VAM for titles such as The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns, X-Men, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Daren R. Dochterman was the Visual Effects Supervisor on The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He has worked in the motion picture industry for nearly thirty years and has over 65 motion picture credits as a concept designer and production illustrator, storyboard artist, visual effects artist, and art director. He’s been a director, editor, sound man, model builder, compositor, and actor. He also is an instructor of 3D modeling and architectural rendering at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

David C. Fein worked with filmmaker Robert Wise for several years and is the award-winning producer of The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He is a pioneer in the field of special edition bonus features and produced the acclaimed documentaries on the making of Alien, The Last Starfighter, The Guns of Navarone, and others. He supervised audio restoration work for the Jay Ward animation catalog and has produced graphic design for numerous soundtracks and video productions. His articles on visual effects and computer technology have appeared in Cinefex and other publications.

Scott Mantz is the Film Segment Producer and resident Film Critic for Access Hollywood and Access Hollywood Live. Prior to Access Hollywood, Mantz worked for nine years as the Controller and Stage Show Manager for Creation Entertainment, where he traveled all over the country hosting Star Trek conventions. In addition to reviewing movies and providing awards season analysis for The Today Show, KNBC and the PBS review series Just Seen It, Mantz also hosts and produces Profiles, the weekly YouTube & iTunes film series that spotlights the greatest filmmakers of all time. He is the winner of the 2014 Press Award from the ICG Publicists Guild.

Mike Matessino was the Restoration Supervisor for The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and worked with producer/director Robert Wise from 1993-2005. In 2012 he produced, with Bruce Botnick, for La-La Land Records a 3-CD expanded score release of Jerry Goldsmith’s music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His other soundtrack credits as producer, mixer, mastering engineer or liner notes writer include Empire of the Sun, 1941, Poltergeist, Alien, Gremlins, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Home Alone, Superman, and the Star Wars Trilogy. He has directed behind-the-scenes documentaries on The Sound of Music, Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and The Last Starfighter.

Denise Okuda was Video and Computer Playback Supervisor for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and four Trek movies. In another universe, she worked on promotion for Buckaroo Banzai. Along with husband Michael, Denise is co-author of The Star Trek Encyclopedia (Pocket, 1997) and Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future (1996). She’s also recorded audio commentaries for numerous Star Trek DVDs and Blu-rays. Denise is an ardent fan of the National Football League and spends way too much time watching the Red Zone Channel.

Michael Okuda’s work on Star Trek has earned him screen credit on more episodes and movies than anyone except Gene Roddenberry. Mike was Lead Graphic Designer for Star Trek: The Next Generation through Enterprise and has been nominated three times for the primetime Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects. His NASA work includes the crew patch for the STS-125 space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, and he has been honored with NASA’s Exceptional Public Service medal. As a tech consultant to Star Trek, he “invented” the Heisenberg compensator to answer those who foolishly believe the transporter is impossible.

Denise and Michael are both members of the Art Directors Guild. They recently served as visual effects consultants to CBS for the high-definition remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the original Star Trek series. They live in Los Angeles with their dogs, Amber Joy and Scooter T. Rocketboy.

And now that the participants have been introduced, I suggest cueing up Jerry Goldsmith’s revered Star Trek: The Motion Picture score and enjoy the conversation with these Treksperts.

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Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is Star Trek: The Motion Picture worthy of celebration on its 35th anniversary?

Mark A. Altman: It’s been said elsewhere and I think it’s no less true today than it was 35 years ago that in many ways Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only true motion picture in the Trek franchise, and not a glorified TV episode, with the exclusion of the recent Abrams movies. It was the only film that had a real budget (until Nemesis, and you see how that turned out) and that is reflected in the scope of the film. The Enterprise feels like a real starship, well-populated and vast. Fans always point to the drydock scene as infusing the iconic starship with life, but it’s just as true once the shuttle pod docks and Kirk finds himself in a massive cargo bay and proceeds into the corridors of the ship, teaming with extras, going about their business. The film, for all its flaws, was also infused with real heady sci-fi ideas, the concept of artificial intelligence attaining consciousness that was way ahead of its time. In fact, the notion of a machine planet with sentience was so out there for the studio at the time that they tried to strike the concept from the film forcing Roddenberry to turn to his friends like Isaac Asimov to make a case that such evolution of artificial intelligence was actually possible. While ST:TMP may not be the best Star Trekmovie, I believe it probably is the best Star Trekfilm. It’s a strange and subtle distinction, but it’s true. Certainly, Star Trek II is a more entertaining and fun movie, but it doesn’t have the scope and sense of awe and wonder of ST:TMP, nor do any of the films that followed it. True to the unemotional Mr. Spock, it is a film that engages the intellect and not the heart.

Jeff Bond: It was a huge development in the Star Trek franchise that really gave rise to everything that followed—it created the visual look for the entire series of movies, including the two J.J. Abrams films, and laid the groundwork for The Next Generation and all the subsequent TV series. It’s a beautifully designed film, and I think Jerry Goldsmith’s score is still one of the greatest ever written and certainly a high water mark in his career.

Neil S. Bulk: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is worthy of a 35th anniversary celebration because it returned Star Trek to the world. It’s also worth celebrating, because in all of Star Trek there isn’t another movie or TV series like it. This was a big-budget epic feature where no expense was spared. Everything (with the exception of Uhura’s earpiece) was built specifically for this movie. The scale is enormous, both physically and intellectually.

Robert Meyer Burnett: If nothing else, The Motion Picture ensured the future success of the entire Trek franchise. Had the film not worked, had it not been an enormous financial success, Trek would’ve ended right there, probably lying dormant for decades until this current climate of reboots and re-imaginings made the return of Trek possible. The decision to bring back the original cast, creating an expanding “In Universe” continuity between the end of The Original Series and the beginning of the feature, also remains one of the great, mostly-overlooked elements of TMP. Roddenberry carried this idea much further in The Next Generation, setting the series almost 100 years after TOS, allowing viewers and the fan base to enjoy a much richer experience with all the historical backstory.

Daren R. Dochterman:Star Trek: The Motion Picture still towers over the subsequent Trek films in several ways. Its vision and scope have never been matched. The subtlety of performances by all the cast are quite impressive…having to deal with picking up their story ten years after The Original Series is a tough thing… and when we meet our cast, they are in various different parts of their life than when we last saw them. They are all out of their element. Out of synch with their younger selves. “Incomplete”… like the entity “V’Ger”…. The most obvious change in character is Spock, who has tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to purge his human half emotions. When he arrives, he acts like a total, cold, jerk. With none of the recognition of his past experiences with our beloved crew. Spock undergoes the greatest change in the film… but so does Kirk to a lesser degree. He barrels into claiming back command from the young Captain Decker, who is sort of the deer in the oncoming headlights of Kirk’s brash manipulation of Starfleet politics. Kirk recklessly plunges forward into his new mission… but without the sage guidance of the rest of the Trinity of Spock and McCoy to aid him, he nearly destroys the ship. These characters are not as we remember them… and as such, they make us uneasy a bit…until by the end of the film, they have gone on a journey of discovery much like V’Ger’s and come to settle in their well-known personae. Except Spock… who, it seems, finally reconciles his Vulcan and human half to create a balanced being of Logic and Passion who continues in the next films to be the driving force behind the series. These characters are handled in a much more complex way than they have previously, and, though some believe TMP to be more of a visual effects showcase, it is actually these more grown up presentations of the characters that are the most successful outcomes of the film. TMP was the first of the “TV to movie” translations… and for good or bad created a new type of film. A hybrid of what we remember, and of what can be. Something unheard of at its time.

David C. Fein: In 1977 Star Wars ignited audiences’ passion for the science fiction “space opera.” It was Star Trek: The Motion Picture that I feel revived the intelligent thought–provoking science fiction story—different from the action adventure—that further launched, defined, and inspired a franchise of films and television series to follow. These few years at the end of the 70s made an indelible mark on the world that changed and formed the future of entertainment forever.

Scott Mantz:Star Trek: The Motion Picture has always been an unfairly underrated movie, but I always loved it. Loved it when I first saw it in 1979 when I was 11 years old, and love it even more now, thanks to the benefit of perspective…. I totally get why it gets a bad rap. It’s boring. Really, it is, unless you are prepared to embrace it the way it was intended. Back in the day, everyone expected another Star Wars, and what they got was closer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was a cerebral movie, not an action movie with space battles (though to give credit where credit was due, it did have a few of those)…. But back to your question… Why is ST:TMP worthy of a 35th anniversary celebration? Well, the answer is simple: Because it was the first Star Trek movie, period. Without it, there would have been no Wrath of Khan, no Next Generation, and quite probably no Star Trek 2009 (which, in my opinion, wasn’t just a great Star Trek movie; it was a great movie, period)…. As we all know, TMP wasn’t the Star Trek everyone wanted, since the main characters—particularly Kirk and Spock—were out of character from who they were in The Original Series: There was some doubt as to whether Spock could be trusted, and Kirk basically pulled a dick move to get the Enterprise back. And even after he got it back, he still didn’t know his way around enough to find Turbo Shaft 8 (“Back that way, Sir”)…. But given that everyone had gone their separate ways in the two and a half years since the five-year mission, it made perfect sense from a chronological standpoint that everyone was out of sorts…. But even beyond that, it was great to see the Enterprise on the big screen, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score was and still is magnificent!

Mike Matessino:Star Trek: The Motion Picture was itself a milestone in cinema and there are a lot of obvious reasons why it’s worthy of celebration… it was the first successful leap of a television property to the big screen and it re-launched a franchise that continues to this day, and so forth… but I would take it a step further and say that the movie is more relevant now than it ever was. Visually it really holds up and I think it is appreciated more now for bringing a scope and majesty to the Star Trek universe that, arguably, was never again sustained on this grand a scale.

Michael Okuda: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is more than a motion picture. It is the culmination of the dream of all of us Star Trek fans who loved the original series. Of everyone whose heart sank when the original series was cancelled, and who spent the next decade wishing that somehow, our friends on that fabulous starship could come back and we could go with them on another voyage into the unknown.

Denise Okuda: When we watch ST:TMP, we still feel an echo of that thrill, that moment of triumph when this movie that we wanted so very much, for which we waited for so very long, finally came to the screen. So for us, it is very much worthy of celebration, not only as a cinematic achievement, but for very personal reasons.

Coate: When did you first see Star Trek: The Motion Picture and what was your reaction?

Altman: I first saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture opening day on December 7, 1979. Much as depicted in my film Free Enterprise, I raced from junior high school with two friends, Kevin Costello and Richard Gallo, to the Georgetown Theater in Brooklyn (now a Party City apparently) only to be denied entrance to the G-rated movie by an over-earnest box-office attendant who told me children under 16 were no longer allowed in the theater unaccompanied by an adult after 4pm due to a recent “incident” (whatever the hell that meant). After telling her I was related to Robert Altman (I wasn’t, by the way) and looking at her befuddled reaction, I was forced to explore alternate options of admittance as there was no way I was going to miss seeing ST:TMP on opening day. Realizing my mother would be at the Brooklyn Savings Bank to deposit her paycheck after work, I rushed there at warp speed and convinced her to take my friends and me to the movie, which she did reluctantly under duress. It’s hard for those who grew up on the film in home video to understand what it was like sitting in a theater in 1979 and finally seeing Star Trek return after incessant delays, false starts and dashed hopes and dreams. To look up at a massive theater screen as the overture began and the curtains parted was no less a miracle than the parting of the Red Sea as the words Star Trek appeared writ large on the silver screen and Jerry Goldsmith’s stunning and now indelible theme music began to play. And in a moment that can only be described as sheer ecstasy, the Klingon theme started to play and a Klingon cruiser is revealed in battle against a mysterious entity. More than any other moment in cinema, this may be the ultimate high in nearly five decades of watching Star Trek. That said, one was abundantly aware of the film’s flaws, even at the time, the often lethargic pace, the lack of humor, the disappointing similarity to The Changeling. And yet, it was hard to see the film as a disappointment. The familiar trappings were all there, the ship never looked better, Kirk was in command with Spock and McCoy, ultimately, at his side. The biggest worry fans seemed to have was what if this is it? What if the inflated costs and savage reviews were the death knell for Star Trek? Is there nothing more? Is this all that I am? The answer, of course, was not by a longshot.

Bond: To be perfectly honest, it was possibly the most disappointing movie experience of my life, and that’s due to the end result of what the film was and the level of anticipation it created. Star Wars, for example, probably had more impact for people of my generation than any movie, and part of that was because it came as a complete surprise—it seemed to come out of nowhere and completely change the way we looked at movies. Star Trek, on the other hand, was arguably the most highly-anticipated movie since Gone With the Wind, and there was probably no way it could meet the expectations people had for it. It was made at the height of original Trek fandom, and people followed its development, from something that was going to be directed by Philip Kaufman to a new Star Trek TV series and finally to what became Star Trek: The Motion Picture—we were devouring monthly updates in Starlog magazine, reading teaser pieces in Time magazine, and I think people really expected it to be the greatest science fiction movie ever made. I remember I had to drive out of state to see it with friends, and during the first 15 minutes I was just in heaven, blown away by the scope of the visual effects and Jerry Goldsmith’s magnificent score, and then the whole thing settled down into one long scene on this gray, colorless bridge peopled by crewmen in gray uniforms. It seemed a rehash of plots from the TV episodes, the visual effects, after the well-publicized meltdown from Robert Abel’s visual effects department, seemed, as Gene Siskel pointed out, just like very simple copies of effects done better in Star Wars and Close Encounters. And it just seemed to miss the dramatic fire, the action and fun that a lot of us remembered from the TV series. Now I can admire its ambition and a lot of elements of its production, but it just lacked the excitement of Star Trek for me, and it was a precursor of what Gene Roddenberry’s vision of Star Trek was about to become in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was a far more reserved and bland utopia than you saw on the original series.

Bulk: The first time I saw it I was three years old. It was during the original release at the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I didn’t have much of a reaction as I was much too young to appreciate it, but I remember seeing it there. It was only years later (when I was helping you with some research, Mike) that I confirmed that it did play in that theater and my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me.

Burnett: I saw the very first show of TMP in the John Danz Theater in Bellevue, Washington. I was 12 years old and I’d counted down the days to the opening for the better part of a year. The film blew me away. I loved everything about it... but most of all, the film felt important. I loved the film’s scope, showing us 23rd Century Earth for the first time and providing glimpses into the Trek universe outside the perspective of our main characters, with the Klingon attack opening, the scenes on the Epsilon 9 station and Spock’s time on Vulcan away from the Enterprise. These were simply revelatory. It was a serious film... and as I moved into my teenage years, I was pretty serious about my own life, so I very much appreciated the film’s tone. Unlike many of the film’s detractors, I had absolutely no problem with the pacing or the lack of the franchise’s more... entertaining elements, such as Tribbles or Gorns. Sure, the plot may have resembled The Changeling, but V’Ger’s sheer size suggested The Universe itself... and the Klingons finally seemed a formidable force. When they were vanquished so easily, the audience knew there was a real danger. All bets were off. To me, TMP’s seriousness evoked some of my favorite episodes of the series, such as The Immunity Syndrome, The Doomsday Machine, Balance of Terror or The Tholian Web.

Dochterman: I was there on opening weekend. On Sunday, December 9th at around 3 in the afternoon. I was 12 years old, and had already been primed by several articles in Starlog magazine and Scholastic magazines at school. I was very excited. I had been a Star Trek fan since 1973 and my first exposure to The Animated Series got me interested in the live-action re-runs. Channel 11, WPIX in New York, ran the original series every night and I had audiotapes of several of my favorite episodes that I had committed to memory. I saw the film and loved it… as it was. Warts and all. I had no conception that it had been rushed to completion, with a minimal sound mix, and no fine cut. No inkling that the visual effects had been rushed into a kamikaze eight-month schedule. And no clue that it was a truly troubled production. Instead it showed me my heroes again. In a setting that I could only describe as “real”… It convinced me totally. And in my eyes, it was never to be that grand again in a movie.

Fein: I first saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture when I was a kid growing up in Staten Island, New York. My father took me to see the film at the Lane Theater and the experience was absolutely breathtaking and awe-inspiring. I was captivated by seeing my childhood television heroes on the big screen… especially Kirk and his heroine… The Enterprise. I was in heaven when Scotty took us… err… Kirk around her to marvel at the refit lines and curves. It wasn’t until the original Enterprise model arrived at Foundation Imaging for The Director’s Edition that I remembered how thrilling that childhood moment captured my imagination. Once again, I travelled over every inch of the model studying every detail. It was magical.

Mantz: I saw TMP on its opening weekend, but on a Saturday, so that would have been December 8th, at the Leo Mall in Northeast Philadelphia. I had already been a diehard Trekker (or Trekkie, as we were still called in those days), and I watched Star Trek every night at 7pm on Channel 17. Of course I was blown away by Star Wars, and I loved Battlestar Galactica, but the original Star Trek was and still is my favorite TV show of all time…. I answered a lot of this in [the first question], but the thing that struck me the most was the music. Goldsmith could have gone the John Williams/Star Wars route, but he went in another direction, which is why it still holds up. The opening credits theme and the love theme are among the most beautiful scores ever composed for the big screen.

Matessino: I cut school and saw TMP at the first show on opening day. I loved it from the outset because it was just so amazing to see the Star Trek characters and the Enterprise on the big screen. There was, of course, a sense that it wasn’t a rip-roaring action picture like Star Wars, but nevertheless I was completely mesmerized by the whole idea of a sophisticated spaceship heading out to attempt contact with a potentially deadly alien intelligence. I’ll even admit that two-and-a-half years later, I came out of seeing Star Trek II feeling, as I still do, that it’s a terrific movie but that I still liked TMP better.

D. Okuda: We both saw it on opening day, although we didn’t know each other at the time, and we saw it in different cities. My overwhelming reaction, and Mike’s too, was joy that the film had been made.

M. Okuda: I think we each saw it as almost a personal vindication that something we loved so much had come back in such a spectacular fashion. Still, there’s no denying that the film doesn’t quite capture the drama, the excitement, or the sense of family that we loved so much about the original series.

Coate: How is Star Trek: The Motion Picture significant within the science-fiction/fantasy genre?

Altman:Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the last gasp of more cerebral sci-fi storytelling. Although it was released two years after Star Wars, ST:TMP owed far more to 2001: A Space Odyssey than it ever did to Star Wars. It was not space opera, it was science fiction. Star Trek influenced Star Wars in a way that Star Wars never influenced Trek. (Other than the dreadful bar scene in Star Trek III.) George Lucas has admitted to being a fan, and you can see Trekkian conceits (deflector shields, cloaking devices, etc.) amongst the trappings of the serials, Westerns and Kurosawa. If anything, we can blame Star Wars for killing Star Trek: Phase II, Paramount’s plan to revive the television series as a 13-episode sequel for its aborted fourth network, which had itself killed Philip Kaufman’s previous attempt to do a heady Trek motion picture, Planet of Titans, a Spock-centric mind-fuck in which the Enterprise crew would eventually be revealed as the Titans of ancient myth. Other than John Dykstra, there’s nothing of Star Wars in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is probably why it proved to be such a disappointment to so many people who were expecting space dogfights and witty banter. Both of which they would get in the sequel. Ultimately, Trek would have been better served by the TV series because Star Trek is a television show, it’s steeped in character or as Nicholas Meyer once said, it’s a radio show, not ideally suited to cinema. When you try to make it a movie, you end up with what J.J. Abrams did: delicious eye candy which are empty calories. Missing the message and metaphor at the heart of great Star Trek, but enjoyably entertaining romps nonetheless.

Bond: I think primarily in re-establishing this franchise and giving it a visual look that could be accepted by audiences into the 1980s, 1990s and beyond.

Bulk: It is a big epic-scale production that doesn’t devolve into fist fights or laser battles. I enjoy those things, but TMP came out as a response to Star Wars and it could have easily gone the “shoot ‘em up” route. The fact that it doesn’t is something to appreciate.

Burnett: TMP, like Forbidden Planet, 2001, Close Encounters and Alien before it, celebrates the wonders and mysteries of the Universe itself. However you feel about the film, TMP evokes the same kind of genuine awe we felt seeing the Krell Labs for the first time. The scope and size of V’Ger, the ultimately prescient storyline of the coming Singularity and Spock’s realization of the value of emotion are huge ideas, the very core of classical science fiction. How refreshing after the swashbuckling reductive nature of Star Wars fantasy, with planets nothing more than foreign lands. TMP brought audiences to a point where big questions about the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos were being asked, questions bigger than even those in The Original Series itself. Thirty-five years later, TMP still remains probably the best illustration of Ray Kurzweil’s ideas about Singularity ever committed to film. Spock relating V’Ger’s central question, “Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?” gives me chills every time.

Dochterman: The number of popular culture events that can be classified as “true science-fiction” can be counted on one hand. With all the cultural explosions that Star Wars ignited, Star Trek was both a progenitor and a descendant of it. Never again would Star Trek adventures have the emphasis on science fiction… they would later be transformed into more of an action adventure space fantasy mode. For “purists,” of which I count myself as one, TMP was the great experiment. It’s debatable whether or not the later installments are as high targeted as the intent for TMP. Though it is constantly reported as a “big lumbering failure” by some revisionists, TMP was a very successful film. So much so, that it was able to carry the burden of ten years of development and holding costs that were incurred by the studio for several movie attempts, and an almost gestated Phase II television series. All of those costs were folded into the budget of TMP, perhaps unfairly. Still, it was a blockbuster in its day. Though Trek II: The Wrath of Khan sold slightly more tickets quicker than its predecessor, it created a take on the world that was subtly smaller, and less wondrous. The second film and the sequels do give a bigger “bang” at the end to let the audience know when to clap… but it doesn’t merit a place in the pantheon of great science fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet… both influences on TMP.

Fein: The creative and financial success of the film made it the anchor point from which everything Star Trek evolved. I’m clearly not discounting the original series—I appreciate the way The Motion Picture elevated the property and opened the many new doors for the franchise. It was the first true theatrical “revival” of a television series, and would forever inspire the future of the science fiction genre.

Mantz: Last summer, it was reported that Voyager 1 finally left the outer reaches of our solar system for interstellar space. That made me think of ST:TMP—that someday, maybe tens of thousands of years from now, an alien intelligence could find our little Voyager and evolve it enough to be a sentient being. I know a lot of Trekkers who had that same reaction. It is pure sci-fi, but who knows, maybe it’ll happen.

Matessino: I feel that Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains extremely important as a piece of science-fiction cinema for the simple reason that we really have not had too many true science-fiction films. Star Wars was a fantasy that utilized common science-fiction tools like spacecraft and lasers, but it was so popular that this became the template for most of what was to come, and we can even see the impact of that on the Star Trek feature films that followed. What TMP did was demonstrate that the characters and the basic premise of Star Trek could hold their own in a 2001: A Space Odyssey-like story. It completely broke the bonds of what had been considered a campy ‘60s TV show by some and showed that the basic idea was capable of much more than that. In and of itself I feel that TMP addresses a lot of very important issues about our relationship with technology and what it will take for humanity to be truly worthy of going out into space and confronting the unknown. Along with The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I feel it’s a “must-see” movie for the true science-fiction aficionado.

Coate: In what way did Star Trek: The Motion Picture influence your desire to work in the film industry?

Altman: While it was really seeing North by Northwest in a revival house in the 70s that originally sparked my passion for movies and moviemaking, there’s no question that Star Trek: The Motion Picture dramatically fanned the flames of my love for Star Trek. I’m not sure the white hot embers of my affection for Roddenberry’s singular creation could have remained lit for another 35 years had the movie series not existed after the sacred 79 to keep it alive and vibrant. But aside from the obvious ten ton gorilla of Star Wars, which I will always love and adore, there are the many misfires of the 70s that I am still equally passionate about that would have never survived the vitriol of the Internet at the time had it existed; films like The Boys From Brazil, Logan’s Run and even The Black Hole, which all helped inspire me to make my mashed potato mountains and drive me obsessively to the Devil’s Tower that is Hollywood. And, of course, Colossus and Westworld and even Futureworld. While ST:TMP may not be my favorite Star Trek film, it probably remains the one I watch the most on DVD and Blu-ray. Part of that is nostalgia, but part is also because there’s so many great moments in the film, even if they don’t all come together cohesively. For instance, we’ve seen the scene ad nauseum where McCoy berates Kirk in private, but there’s probably not a better version of this scene than when McCoy lays into Kirk after Kirk confronts Decker. And when McCoy exits, leaving Shatner fuming as a transparent door slides closed in front of him, it’s a wonderfully quiet moment that captures everything I love about Star Trek. That said, I spent many years writing about Star Trek as a journalist and much like Michael Corleone, I am again now getting dragged back in and certainly ST:TMP very much was at the root of inspiring me to write about Trek. And without this being a shameless plug for my upcoming book, The Fifty Year Mission, I can tell you the ST:TMP chapter is perhaps one of the most interesting chapters in the book along with the one on Enterprise.

Bond: Well in my case it just reinforced my growing obsession with Jerry Goldsmith’s work—I was buying my first LPs of his music back then and TMP was certainly the cornerstone of that, and I would eventually write about film music and be lucky enough to work on many soundtrack albums and almost all the later releases of Star Trek music including a tremendous 3-disc set of all the music from TMP among other things.

Bulk: Star Trek: The Motion Picture was my first exposure to Jerry Goldsmith. My father bought the soundtrack album for me on January 1, 1980. It wasn’t the first record I owned, but it was probably the first soundtrack I owned. At the time, Klingon Battle scared me as it played on my Fisher-Price record player. And although it frightened me (even the aliens on the record sleeve were scary) I played that record to death! This was also the era of the return of the symphonic score (usually attributed to John Williams). I grew up with the genre films and their music during this period, but it was TMP that ignited my love of music for film. This is what got me interested in pursuing sound editing, which led to my work on restoring classic scores for the specialty labels (Film Score Monthly, La-La Land Records, Intrada, Kritzerland and Varese Sarabande, for instance). Now I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work in an area I grew up loving. One of my first projects was the release of the expanded Star Trek II album. This opened the gates and led to a variety of Star Trek album releases. I’ve been fortunate to work on many of them, including La-La Land’s release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And to bring things full circle, I sat in on the multi-track stereo remix for Klingon Battle while that album was in production. It doesn’t scare me as much anymore.

Burnett: My desire to make films began when I was five and saw George Pal’s production of War of the Worlds. Soon after came a chance viewing of Planet of the Apes. Then, every Sunday afternoon, I’d watch Sci-Fi Theater and see Japanese Sci-Fi like Rodan, The Mysterians and The Green Slime or fantasy epics like Jason and the Argonauts, other George Pal classics like When Worlds Collide or maybe a British film, such as a Quatermass and the Pit. The Outer Limits, UFO, Space: 1999 and especially The Twilight Zone were on television, along with endless TOS reruns. Jaws and Logan’s Run blew me away in the movie theater. Star Wars and Close Encounters were my speed of light, changing my universe and showing me new, limitless possibilities of the power of motion pictures. In the wake of those two films, I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and began to read the classics, like Foundation, Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land, opening my mind further still. Starlog, Cinemagic, Fangoria and Cinefantastique magazines fueled my thirst for knowledge about upcoming films, and then the first issue of Cinefex, with a TMP cover story and Alien follow up made me realize all I wanted to do was make movies. In 1980, the home video revolution turned me into a film scholar, and a flood of genre films in the early eighties, with all of their own wonders, filled me with hope and dreams of the industry. Believe me... it was a perfect time to be a kid, because everything you saw had never been seen before.

Dochterman: TMP was the last straw on the camel’s back… the final nail in the coffin of my aspirations… the last lemon of the jackpot. Seriously, the onslaught of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Superman: The Movie did their best to determine my obsession with movies… and Star Trek: The Motion Picture finished the job. I was enthralled not only with the story and the effects of the movie… but also with the processes and people who made it happen. I learned all I could about it at the time… and remembered and had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the creative artists that were responsible… and twenty years later, to get the chance to work with Robert Wise himself on the realization of his 2001 Director’s Edition of the film.

Fein: As a kid I was enchanted by science fiction stories. Every night I would rush home by 6pm to sit in front of my 19” color television to watch Star Trek reruns. Very often the networks would also show a classic movie in the afternoon before the show. Countless movie marathons would be scheduled each week… Science Fiction-week, Planet of the Apes-week, Abbott and Costello-week, Sinbad-week, etc. There would also be the late-night airings of Space: 1999, The Twilight Zone, and Lost in Space. I was captivated by the adventures and innovation of science fiction. It wasn’t until 1977 that Star Wars ignited my desire to become a filmmaker. I was completely drawn into that fantasy and I felt such great joy when the rebels destroyed the Death Star. So, of course, I was more than excited when I heard that Star Trek: The Motion Picture was coming. The combination of the two movie masterpieces launched my insatiable need to learn everything I possibly could about the art of filmmaking, the production process, and especially special effects. (Not unlike V’Ger’s own insatiable need to learn?) Uniquely, it was Cinefex magazine that became my bible. I wanted and read every book and magazine about the magic behind-the-scenes, and studied every movie and filmmaking documentary I could get my hands on. Filmmaking became my passion; it was in my blood. So I’d say that classic Star Trek was the spark that ignited my passion for science fiction, and The Motion Picture (and Star Wars) inspired me to make production my goal in life.

Mantz: Star Trek changed my life. I know, a lot of people say that, but for me, it really did…. If it wasn’t for Star Trek, I never would have gone to the conventions. I went to my first Trek convention on November 21, 1980 (my 12th birthday), and Walter Koenig was the guest of honor. I went to conventions pretty regularly, until I graduated from high school in 1986, went away to college and “got a life.” (In other words, I discovered girls!)…. But a year after I graduated from Penn State in 1990 with a degree in accounting, I was miserable, working a job I hated in Philly. That’s when I reached out to Creation Entertainment (the company that ran the Trek conventions), and they hired me as their controller. They moved me to Los Angeles in 1991, and I worked there for 9 years. I left there in 2000 to become a producer and film critic for Access Hollywood, and I’ve been there ever since…. So Trek gave me some direction, steering me towards an area of the business that’s been very good to me. So without Star Trek, I never would have moved to LA, where I’ve been very successful and met my wife. You can’t change your life any more than that.

Matessino: My desire to work in the film industry was motivated by films of all genres. It’s all about telling a good story and using all the tools that cinema offers to create a memorable experience for an audience. To me it feels like more of a coincidence that I happened to be a kid when Star Wars sparked a resurgence of fantasy, effects-laden movies and television. What that did was demonstrate that there was no limit to what you could put up on the screen. If you could think it up, then it was simply a matter of figuring out how (and finding the right people) to do it. As a result we started to have more access to information about how movies were made, and that in turn helped young people believe that they could do it too. Honestly, I think my own interest in cinema would have been there regardless, but I do feel very lucky to have been a kid while this amazing renaissance of fantasy filmmaking was going on…. Star Wars, then Close Encounters, then Superman, then Alien, then Star Trek: The Motion Picture… at least in terms of going to the movies, those are two-and-a-half years I wish I could experience again. It was a truly magical time.

D. Okuda: I had heard from a friend that there was an open casting call for extras in the Rec Deck scene. Naturally, I tried out and was thrilled to be picked, not just as an Enterprise crew member, but I got to be a Vulcan! I’m just a few pixels on the screen, but it really was the thrill of a lifetime. Even now, I look back and smile. I still have my Vulcan ears, somewhere!

M. Okuda: I was lucky enough to tour the set when Star Trek: TMP was in production. I’d done a bit of work in local television and theater, so I was in awe of the scale and the quality of what was being done at Paramount. But the other thing was that while I was blown away by the amazing work on those sets, seeing the stages in person helped me realize that all of this was being done by real people, doing understandable things. I think that helped inspire me, a few years later, to send in my resume and portfolio to Paramount for Star Trek.

Coate:What are the attributes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? What are some of its flaws or disappointing elements?

Altman: For me, the biggest problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture is they made a release date and not a movie. Had Robert Wise had six more months to edit the film and refine it, there could have been a mini-masterpiece there. After all, this is the guy who cut Citizen Kane. To have a film that was literally finished a few days before it was screened at its Washington, DC premiere with Wise literally hand carrying the prints to the theater is not the best way to make a film, and this is in the days where effects and color timing were done on film, not in computers and prints had to be made at great cost and time. Although you can probably trace the root of the film’s failings to a much earlier time and date. When the studio decided to abandon Phase II and capitalize on the success of Star Wars by expediting production on a Star Trek film, something they had tried and failed to develop for years prior, they chose to expand the pilot script for Phase II into a movie rather than start from scratch. And, in fact, that script was nothing more than a proposed script for an episode of Genesis II, another Roddenberry pilot that never went to series. After all, Gene Roddenberry was the greenest writer that ever existed, he never missed an opportunity to recycle a script idea he came up with that had gone unused. So the film began with an idea that was a warmed-over television episode, which was already fairly redolent of a pretty decent Star Trek episode. Not the stuff of which dreams are made of. In order to get the film to the stage as quick as possible, Paramount kept the TV series producer, Harold Livingston, onboard as the writer, a man who admittedly knew next to nothing about Star Trek and was constantly being re-written by Roddenberry who knew next to nothing about movies as he had proved by a succession of ill-conceived pitches for Star Trek films that Paramount had wisely passed on previously. Clearly, no one had ever seen Pretty Maids All in a Row when they decided that Roddenberry was the right man to write and produce a Star Trek film. Fortunately, both Robert Wise and Douglas Trumbull both had a vision for the film, which helped elevate the material beyond its humble origins. (And, by the way, if you haven’t seen Pretty Maids All in a Row, you owe it to yourself to watch it. It stars Rock Hudson as a high school football coach who is seducing all the female students and cheerleaders and may very well be a murderer. When students start turning up dead, Trelane and Scotty are sent to investigate, I mean, William Campbell and Jimmy Doohan. Priceless.) I would also say for a film that’s been deemed humorless, there are some very funny moments in the movie including McCoy’s arrival as well as the scene in the observation lounge in which Kirk entreats Spock to sit down and McCoy says, “lucky for you, we just happened to be going your way” as well as Kirk’s sparring with Decker, in an underwritten role. The film is joyful and full of life through the arrival of Spock as it gets the proverbial band back together. But once the Enterprise arrives at V’Ger, the film starts to become more of a slog. That said, dismissing the familiar refrains, take another look at the brilliant production design of the V’Ger set and even Robert Fletcher’s underrated costumes, not to mention Spock’s spacewalk, which is 2001-esque in its visual poetry.

Bond: It probably boasts the most beautiful-looking starship put on film in the “refit” Enterprise, and one of the most original “alien” vessels/entities in V’Ger as visualized by Syd Mead, Doug Trumbull and the other great artists and technicians that worked on the movie. It has one of the all-time great film scores. To me the flaws outweigh the attributes in terms of a total viewing experience—it is tough for me, a rabid fan, to get through the film and I would imagine it would be torture for a novice viewer due to its pacing and the way the characters from the show are, I think, hamstrung in terms of their involvement in the story. It is certainly an important and arguably moving story for Spock; one of the most important in the series, but I don’t think they found a way to get that across to the audience as effectively as a story like Amok Time for example, which I still find incredibly involving and moving after dozens of viewings. Robert Wise directed two of my all-time favorite sci-fi films, two films I think are legitimately great: The Day the Earth Stood Still, which really laid some groundwork for Star Trek in the way it uses an alien being to comment on humanity, and The Andromeda Strain, which is one of the most absorbing movies ever made about such technical subject matter. You can see Wise using the same kind of technique in TMP, and I have no doubt he could have made a great movie of that if he’d just had a better script to work with.

Bulk: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is probably the purest form of Star Trek, as Gene Roddenberry envisioned it. It’s not difficult to see the parallels between this and The Cage (Star Trek’s first pilot) and the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. These are all projects where his views of the future were relatively unchallenged…. Perhaps people don’t like the story, but as mentioned before, it is pure Star Trek writ large and best appreciated on the biggest screen with the loudest sound system. Robert Wise and all of the filmmakers took The Motion Picture title seriously, so this is a movie designed to be enjoyed in a large environment. Viewing the six-minute “Enterprise” sequence on a television with an inadequate sound system will diminish the impact and perhaps seem “dull” (to quote Mad Magazine’s parody)…. Many of the complaints about the movie deal with the pace or the story. I don’t agree with these views, but to give you an idea, some alternate titles are Where Nomad Had Gone Before (a reference to the original series episode, The Changeling, dealing with a robot searching for its creator), The Motion-less Picture and The Motion Sickness. As has been well documented (most recently by Preston Neal Jones in the new book Return to Tomorrow), TMP was an ambitious film locked into a specific release date and there was never time to preview it. That’s more of a disappointment with the filmmaking process than the actual film. That we’re talking about the movie 35 years later shows that it turned out okay.

Burnett: That TMP didn’t “feel” like an original series episode is both the film’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. On one hand, the production team really did create a vision which felt absolutely cinematic and quite unlike anything audiences had seen before, especially as far as Trek was concerned. There’s a sweeping scope to both the production and the story seldom seen in cinematic science fiction either before or since. But the serious tone, the deliberate pacing and the very intellectual conceits of the storyline were not satisfying for much of the audience, who expected Gorns, English-speaking Klingons, Tribbles, and even talking computers with more scintillating personalities. Entirely bereft of the perceived breezy, pulpy fun and humor of certain episodes of Trek, the mass audience and much of the fan base were expecting something more along the lines of Star Wars or Superman: The Movie. Additionally, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, in an absolutely audacious choice, were deeply unhappy people when the film began. All were varying degrees of morose, angry and actually depressed states in which we’d certainly never seen these characters before, further detracting from a positive experience for the audiences. But for discerning audiences with open minds, TMP provided a unique experience, leaving some audience members, myself included, elated at the prospect, “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning.”

Dochterman: Through the years as I realized the trials and troubles that went into getting the film into theaters the first time, I began to see the flaws in it… very distinct ones. The slight clunky feel to some of the cuts… and especially on certain sections of visual effects, that I learned later were just delivered from the FX house and spliced in… sight unseen. The entire third act does seem to be a little disjointed at times, with dialog repeating over and over again in different ways what we as an audience are supposed to know to convey the plot progression. Some heavy handed-ness in explaining things by the characters… which, thankfully, have been rectified in The Director’s Edition cut years later. I know a lot of audience members bemoan the supposed “slowness” of the film… but frankly, I never saw it that way… It meant to me that the actions in the film seemed more “real”… and that space seemed more vast, and the difficulties of mankind existing in space became more of a threat. I always considered the pacing to be more “deliberate” and gave more weight to the events that were happening.

Fein: Star Trek: The Motion Picturewas a remarkable accomplishment given the challenges it faced. The film is epic yet intimate. Unlike any of the films that followed, the film has a prestigious class in its presentation. From the overture to the grand scale shots of V’Ger, the film was designed as an event. The film—not unlike Jerry Goldsmith’s score—is a symphony of eye candy, but the script and flow of the film was unbalanced. There were production difficulties that caused problems during the production, from story conflicts between Gene Roddenberry and Harold Livingston, to technical and creative problems with the visual effects. The film was flawed but nonetheless breathtaking visually and a celebration of the series reborn. It wasn’t until The Director’s Edition that the film received a much needed fine cut and additional visual effects to smooth out and complete the film. The original version worked; it just was not nearly the polished film it was intended to be.

Mantz: Pretty sure I answered this elsewhere!

Matessino: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is truly a motion picture, despite the perversion of that title that naysayers like to bandy about. It is a movie that is designed for the big screen and a lot of people who find it boring have probably only seen it on a television… and you find the same comments about 2001. Thanks to the extraordinary production design and visual effects you really feel like you are seeing Earth’s future and the Enterprise feels like a real, very complex piece of technology. Robert Wise sensed this and directed the movie to take advantage of all that. It has a tremendous scope, yet there is still a very personal story there about how we interact with technology and with each other. Within the Star Trek continuity, this is actually the most important Spock story of all. It’s in this movie that Spock comes to realize that his human half is something that is an indispensable part of him and that on the Enterprise he finds a true sense of belonging. The journey of this character over the course of the movies that follow has far more resonance when they are viewed in the context of TMP. The only flaws and disappointments to me are that there needed to be more time spent on the script and in post-production. Despite the fact that the original story began life as a pilot for an aborted second TV series, I think that it was a great concept for a Star Trek feature that, unfortunately, suffered from the realities of the business in which it was being attempted.

M. Okuda: Star Trek: The Motion Picture demonstrates that the tight budget, schedule, and technical constraints within which the original series was made were, in fact, an important part of the quality of the show. The brilliance of Gene Roddenberry and the original filmmakers in adapting to and overcoming those limitations resulted in a show that, for the most part, still holds up surprisingly well today. But Roddenberry, like all filmmakers, longed for the day in which he could finally get a “real” budget so that he could cut loose and put his “true vision,” or at least something closer to it, onto the screen. And to Roddenberry, the budget of a big movie must have seemed nearly unlimited. And while the visual achievements of Robert Wise, DP Richard Kline, production designer Harold Michelson, VFX supervisors Trumbull and Dykstra, and the entire team were stellar, the result was ultimately disappointing.

D. Okuda: To be fair, I think you have to remember that it had been ten years since Star Trek had gone off the air. Ten long years. Star Trek was not just a wonderful TV show, but to a lot of us, it had become something more. And during those ten years, our hopes and our expectations grew to the point where frankly, it was probably impossible to satisfy our wishes. I wanted them to recapture the sense of family, of this group of friends. I wanted it to look and sound and feel like the TV show I loved so much. But I also wanted them to push the boundaries, to show me a grand adventure, to give me Gene Roddenberry’s version of 2001. They really tried, but in the end, I wonder if anything could have satisfied completely.

Coate: Which cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture do you like best?

Altman: I remember at conventions in the early 80s, there was a petition going around in a desperate attempt to get Paramount to re-release a new version of the film in a 70mm version. That never happened, but what did miraculously occur was the later VHS release and the ABC television airing both restored footage that was cut from the film which helped the story enormously. Certainly, The Director’s Edition is a terrific addition to the canon as well and was a true labor of love from those involved with some remarkable visual effects that honor the original intentions of the filmmakers. My favorite version of ST:TMP probably only exists in my mind, however. It’s a synthesis of all these versions and, of course, scenes never filmed; the confrontation in Admiral Nogura’s office, the revelation that the girl killed in the transporter was Antoinette, the love of Kirk’s life and Nogura’s aide. There’s also the nutty 70s New Age humanism of Gene Roddenberry that he layered into the novelization like New Humans and a sexual freedom in the 23rd Century that made free love in the 60s look like the Puritans. You gotta love Roddenberry. Plus the communicator that was hard-wired into your brain. Good thing, Steve Jobs didn’t get a crack at that one.

Bond: I really do like the director’s cut, which fixes a number of problems in special effects and other areas. It was a real labor of love and an amazing opportunity, because the original film was truly an unfinished work because of the way it was forced to meet that December 7th release date. I still feel like it could have been cut down even further for pacing, but the problem with doing that is you would almost have to have an entirely new score written. The one great thing that came out of the original pacing of the film, and the fact that entire visual effects shots were placed into that film almost unedited, is that you gave Jerry Goldsmith this incredible canvas to write what is truly a fully developed piece of music worthy of the concert hall. TMP is always compared to Kubrick’s 2001 in terms of that very deliberate pacing that is associated with something more intellectual, but in Kubrick’s case he really made an art film that is often an abstract experience that sort of forces you out of yourself as a viewer, whereas with Star Trek, there are some big ideas there, but you’re still interpreting that through these familiar TV characters that could not really transcend themselves because they had to be around next week, or for the next film. That’s why everything that happens in the movie happens to Ilia and Decker, who are characters we’re not invested in or interested in. Kirk and McCoy are really bystanders and Spock does go through something, but Nimoy deliberately plays him as impenetrable because he’s supposed to be trying to divorce himself from emotions once and for all, and that makes him very remote in a way he wasn’t on the TV series. It works for that specific story but it also makes Spock kind of unpleasant to watch and be around, and Kirk is also very stiffly interpreted by Shatner, who was always so relaxed and confident on the TV show. So you don’t really feel like you’re with the same people, but at the same time their familiarity prevents them from really being part of this story which is about humanity evolving into something else. Kirk, Spock and McCoy can’t truly evolve—at least not to the point this story requires them to.

Bulk: I prefer The Director’s Edition. When put up against the theatrical cut and the “Special Longer Version” there is no comparison. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll mention that I’m friends with Mike Matessino (Restoration Supervisor), David C. Fein (Producer) and Daren R. Dochterman (Visual Effects Supervisor). Regardless of these relationships, The Director’s Edition finally feels like a completed project, with a tighter edit, a polished sound mix, and finished effects. These are things the theatrical version was denied because of the locked in December 7 release date. That was the goal of the project and it succeeded. It’s the version I go to when I watch the movie. I’m hopeful that at some point it will be released in HD.

Burnett: Absolutely The Director’s Edition. No question...although the removal of Kirk’s second “Viewer off” during the V’Ger briefing on the rec deck remains an annoying misstep by the restoration team.

Dochterman: I am totally biased. I definitely prefer The Director’s Edition which I was a contributor to. I got to be part of the discussion with Robert Wise about what changes he wanted made, what trims he wanted, and what additions he intended. Some of the changes in the cut are extremely subtle… and some you don’t really notice at all, save for a change in your reactions to previously cold scenes. The theatrical cut is still enjoyable to me, and I’m glad it is still out there and available. The slightly dodgy “Special Longer Edition” that was first introduced on the television premiere, and then released on home video, and custom cut into the “Sit Long and Prosper” screenings in 1991, is an interesting thought experiment of how much footage can actually be packed into a film. But the inclusion of the unfinished “Kirk Spacesuit in Airlock” footage that were intended to be a completely different sequence just come off as a big mistake.

Fein: There is no question for me… The Director’s Edition of the film is the closest to the original goals for the film and is the way it should be experienced. Historically I see the value of the other versions, but as a film… this is the most compelling and entertaining version. It wasn’t until the final edit of The Director’s Edition that I felt that the character of Kirk was truly in character. The other versions—the theatrical release and the televised “Special Longer Version”—will forever exist for me as memories of the experience I had watching them, but the film that audiences for generations will enjoy most is clearly The Director’s Edition.

Mantz: I like the director’s cut, in which some slight cuts were made to make Kirk a little more likeable. I also loved hearing the bridge sounds that we’re used in The Original Series (it still sounds cool!).

Matessino: Obviously I’m partial to The Director’s Edition because I worked with Bob Wise on creating it. But I acknowledge the historical importance of the original theatrical version as well as the “Special Longer Version.” I think it says something about the movie that when the added scenes aired on the ABC network, viewer response was so strong that Paramount put the extended version out on home video. But especially seen in light of the movies and series that followed, I can’t help seeing the theatrical version the same way that Bob Wise did… as a first rough assembly with an unfinished sound mix, missing effects and lacking a finessed pace and focus. It was the experience of a lifetime to watch the picture with him and hear him explain how just making a small and seemingly unimportant editorial adjustment can bring a scene into focus. He knew that the script for TMP could have been better but by revisiting the film and without changing too much he figured out a way to implement small tweaks to give it more impact. The combination of completing effects as originally intended and giving the movie a proper tempo and sound mix made it into a truly finished picture, in my view. I feel that only in The Director’s Edition do we really get the focus on Decker and Ilia that we need as well as the sense of Kirk and Spock gradually realizing that they are best when they are at each other’s side on board the Enterprise. The Director’s Edition points the story toward these resolutions in a more focused and assured way.

M. Okuda: The Director’s Edition. It’s a better film in so many ways, and it better reflects the vision of the director.

D. Okuda: Still, we both have a certain fondness for the original theatrical release. When we see it, it throws us back to 1979, when that dream came true. And it makes us smile.

Coate: What is the legacy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture?

Altman: Star Trek’s legacy loomed large. They made a movie that most people consider horrible; overbaked, slow, wooden and silly. And it went wildly over budget. And it was still a huge hit. So as much as Star Wars paved a way for a succession of cheapie knock-offs from Message From Space to Battlestar Galactica (albeit not cheap), in a way Star Trek was perhaps even more influential in that it validated the franchise formula that only the James Bond films had really perfected. In the past TV shows turned movies were usually edited together versions of episodes or produced when the show was still on the air, like Adam West’s Batman. For Star Trek, it was ten years since the show was cancelled and yet a vociferous, but not particularly vast group of fans kept it alive and spawned a big budget feature. That feature grossed over a $100 million worldwide in 1980 and proved that Star Trek was a viable franchise. Without Star Trek: The Motion Picture, there would have been no Star Trek II, III, IV, V or bloody VI. No whales. And No God. And it is unlikely there would have ever had been a Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. We can also blame it for Voyager and Enterprise. And the idea of resurrecting a cancelled TV series as a movie or reboot probably would have never been born without Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s success. We can blame it for that too.

Bond: Mike, I think I probably answered this several times!

Bulk: Everything that has happened to Star Trek after this movie is a direct result of this movie. I remember a small item in Video Review magazine in the 80s announcing The Next Generation. It used a publicity still from TMP and had the headline, “Finally, a TV Show, Inspired by the Movie, Inspired by a TV Show.” That sums it up, doesn’t it? TMP confirmed with Paramount that there was an active interest in this franchise and that led to the sequels, which led to multiple television series. And last month Paramount announced a director and a release date for the next Star Trek motion picture. The human adventure is just beginning!

Burnett: The legacy of TMP is the continued and ongoing success of the Star Trek franchise, thirty-five years later and well into the 21st Century. Eleven additional feature films with another on the way, countless novels and comic books, endless toys, and, most importantly, four additional television series, with hundreds of hours of new Trek adventures, additional history and many, many new characters.

Dochterman: Over the years, and with the introduction of The Director’s Edition thirteen years ago, the legacy of TMP has been, wonderfully, resuscitated. I remember back then that the reactions to TMP were generally negative from the younger crowd… one used to the more fast paced and basic good vs. evil stories of the later installments. Now, either due to their exposure to the more textural Director’s Edition, or to their own tastes changing and evolving, the reaction to TMP is much more positive. More and more people seem to be coming to respect the scope and beauty of the first Star Trek film. I hope this continues, as TMP remains an important part of my fandom and my professional life.

Fein: Star Trek: The Motion Picture was one of the last films of Director Robert Wise. His career was remarkable (The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The Sound of Music), and he was a director whom Gene Roddenberry respected and trusted enough to translate Star Trek to the big screen. Star Trek: The Motion Picturedidn’t have an easy birth, but the results of its creation had a ripple effect that defined the direction and future of the Star Trek franchise. I know that Bob believed, and took great pride in the knowledge that his films live on for generations of new audiences to appreciate. As for Star Trek? The film surely benefitted from the success of Star Wars, but was different, and in many ways humbling. And it had an empowering message about the human experience, a message that Gene Roddenberry always inspired in his work. I’ve always felt that tag line for the film truly defined it and its legacy well… there is no comparison.

Matessino: I’ve already mentioned the movie’s place within the Star Trek franchise and the cinematic scope of the picture, so now I’ll elaborate on what I alluded to earlier when I said that the movie has more relevance now than ever. This became shockingly apparent when I viewed the film with an audience a few years ago at an event marking the release of a 3-CD release of Jerry Goldsmith’s amazing music score for the movie. The movie is all about how technology gets in the way of people truly interacting with each other, and I feel that this is a real issue in today’s society that wouldn’t have occurred to us in 1979. The Enterprise is a technological marvel that goes out into space to confront a machine intelligence that has amassed “all that is learnable” about the universe… yet it is still wondering about the meaning of its own existence. This is reflected in the crew of the Enterprise… they are so focused on getting their technology to work that they have forgotten how to interact with each other. If we think about that in terms of our culture today, we can all relate, can’t we? It’s almost like we’re being conditioned to think that we have a fulfilling life if we have all the latest gadgets, have enough Facebook friends, enough Twitter followers, post enough photos to Instagram, and all with the fastest connection money can buy. V’Ger did the same thing… digitized everything it encountered, amassing so much information that it needed a vessel hundreds of times larger than the Enterprise to store it all… only to discover that the only idea in the universe that seems truly fulfilling is to physically connect with someone. Somehow Gene Roddenberry saw this coming. Now, even thirty-five years after the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, we need to listen all over again. That’s one hell of a legacy.

M. Okuda: Star Trek: The Motion Picture marked the graduation of Gene Roddenberry’s little TV show into the big time. It wasn’t just a quick rip-off of a popular TV show. It showed that you can do real science fiction in a popular film, that it can be thoughtful and character-based and that it didn’t have to be sterile special effects and explosions.

D. Okuda: Just as the original Star Trek inspired many of us, Star Trek: The Motion Picture showed that Gene Roddenberry’s vision can continue to delight, entertain, and inspire.

Coate: Thank you, everyone, for participating and for sharing your thoughts about Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the occasion of its 35th anniversary.

All right, as I said there’s not a ton of announcement news today, but while the press release hasn’t yet hit the wires, Warner and New Line’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is now official for pre-order on Amazon on 3/24, and there’s now final cover artwork and details on the extras. You’ll get 3 documentary featurettes (Recruiting the Five Armies, Completing Middle-Earth, and New Zealand: Home of Middle-Earth – Part 3), plus Billy Boyd’s The Last Goodbye music video. Below you’ll find the final official cover artwork for all four versions – the Blu-ray 3D Combo, the Blu-ray Combo, the DVD, and The Hobbit: Theatrical Trilogy Blu-ray set.

In other news today, Warner has announced the Island of Lemurs: Madagascar IMAX for Blu-ray Combo and digital release on 3/31.

Warner has set The John Wayne Western Collection for Blu-ray release on 6/2, including Rio Bravo, The Train Robbers, Fort Apache, and Cahill: U.S. Marshall. Of these, we believe that The Train Robbers and Cahill are new to the format.

Speaking of Warner, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies is now officially up for pre-order on Amazon with a street date of 3/24 on Blu-ray 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo and DVD. We expect the official announcement any time now. [Read on here…]

Warner has also set the animated Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts for Blu-ray, DVD and digital release on 5/12.

And Warner has officially announced a pair of new TCM Greatest Classic Legend Film Collections for DVD only release on 4/7 (SRP $27.92 each) including Maureen O’Hara – includes The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), The Spanish Main (1945), and The Wings of Eagles (1957) – and Debbie Reynolds – Singin’ in the Rain (1952), How the West Was Won (1963), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), and The Singing Nun (1966).

Meanwhile, it looks as if Mill Creek Entertainment is releasing a pair of Three Stooges Collection: Triple Feature Blu-rays on 4/21 (SRP $14.98). Volume One will include Time Out for Rhythm (1941), Rockin’ in the Rockies (1945), and Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959), while Volume Two will include The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962), Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963), and The Outlaws Is Coming (1965).

Also, Starz and Anchor Bay have just set For the Boys for Blu-ray release on 4/7.

BBC Entertainment will release Call the Midwife: Season Four on DVD and Blu-ray on 5/19.

Image Entertainment will release Zombieworld on DVD and digital on 2/24.

Lionsgate will release Son of a Gun and Vice on Blu-ray and DVD on 3/17, followed by Wild Card on both formats on 3/31.

MVD Entertainment will release the Arrow Films US titles Retaliation (1969), Society (1989) and Island of Death (1976) on Blu-ray/DVD Combo on 5/12, 5/19, and 5/26 respectively. Each has an SRP of $39.95 and includes substantial extras. Retaliation will be limited to 3,000 copies.

Here’s a little bit of new cover artwork (click on the images to pre-order on Amazon)...